vol2-no3

Volume Two

�

SPRING, 1960

.�

Number Three

Jacob Scher: Some Comments oti the Law 0/ Obscenity David I. Rubin: The Prophet

Donald T. Torchiana: Heart's Needle:

Snodgrass Strides

Through the Universe William De Witt

Snodgrass: Letter

C. Dennis Wunsch: End

0/ the Rainbow

Richard John Smith: The

Valley 0/ a Thousand Hills

Shakespeare's Coriolanus, a Symposium 0/ Seveil, Carl A. Roebuck: Coriolanus: The Story Stuart G. P. Small: Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus

Lacy B. Smith: Coriolanus and the State Richard C.

Snyder: Coriolanus: A Political View .

Frank W. Fetter: What Does Coriolanus Tell the

Economist?

Robert I. Watson: Coriolanus: An Exercise in

Psychoanalysis Moody E. Prior: Coriolanus as a Tragic Hero Barbara J. Fox: The Sum

Harold M. Grutzmacher: Poems

$.50 per copy

CP-ublisluti

$1.50 per year

7alL:Winter&Spril!j 1

Northwestern University

TRI-QUARTERLY Volume Two

Number Three

1960

SPRING,

PAGE

JACOB SCHER: Some Comments on the Law of Obscenity

3

DAVID I. RUBIN: The Prophet

11

DONALD T. TORCHIANA: Heart's Needle: Snodgrass Strides

Through the Universe

18

WILLIAM De WITT SNODGRASS: Letter

26

C. DENNIS WUNSCH: End of the Rainbow

27

RICHARD JOHN SMITH: The Valley of a Thousand Hills

31

Shakespeare's CORIOLANUS, a Symposium of Seven CARL ROEBUCK: Coriolanus: The Story STUART G. P. SMALL: Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus

'"

.

34

"

34 36

LACY B. SMITH: Coriolanus and the State

37

RICHARD C. SNYDER: Coriolanus: A Political View

38

FRANK W. FETTER: What Does Coriolanus Tell the Economist?

39

ROBERT I. WATSON: Coriolanus: An Exercise in Psychoanalysis

41

MOODY E. PRIOR: Coriolanus as a Tragic Hero

43

BARBARA J. FOX: The Sum

HAROLD M. GRUTZMACHER: Poems

45 ,

..

47

"

\

•

Tri-QUARTERLY is a magazine devoted to fiction, poetry, and articles of general interest, pub­ lished in the fall, winter, and spring quarters at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and printed by Lloyd Hollister Inc., Wilmette, Illinois.

Subscription rates: $1.50 yearly within the United States; $1.65, Canada; $1.75, foreign. Single copies will be sold locally for $.50. Contributions, cor­ respondence, and subscriptions should be addressed to The Tri-QUARTERLY, care of the Northwest­ ern University Press, 1840 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois. Contributions unaccompanied by a self­ addressed envelope and return postage will not be returned. Except by invitation, contributors are' The

limited to persons who have some connection with

University. Copyright, 1960, by Northwestern University. All rights reserved.

the

Editorial Board The editor is EDWARD B. HUNGERFORD. Senior members of the editorial board are Professors RAY A. BILLINGTON and MELVILLE HERSKOVITS of the College of Liberal Arts, Dean JAMES H. MC BURNEY of the School of Speech, Dr. WILLIAM B. WARTMAN of the School of Medicine, and Mr. JAMES M. BARKER of the Board of Trustees.

Undergraduate editors, ROBERT N.

HYLAND, DWAYNE THORPE, MARK SMITH, DAVID RUBIN.

Undergraduate Staff, DONALD W.

HAUGER, circulation manager,

JULIA COTTRELL, publicity manager.

The Tri-QUARTERLY is distributed by Northwestern University Press, and is under the business management of the Press.

Jacob Scher Jacob Scher, professor of Journalism at Northwestern University,

edu­

was

cated in the Chicago public schools and graduated in law from the University of Illinois. He was admitted to the Illinois and Federal bars in 1931 and prac­ ticed law in Chicago for five years. He

was Chicago supervisor of the Federal (WPA) during several of the depression years. Then he went into newspaper work: for the United Press, Chicago American, Chicago Sun­ Times, Oakland (California) Tribune, and Chicago Tribune. He joined the North­ western faculty in 1947.

At present he is chief counsel of the Government Information Subcommittee, U.S. House of Representatives, in Washington, D.C., on leave from the Univer­ sity.

Writers Project

SOME COMMENTS ON THE LAW OF OBSCENITY THE LAW OF OBSCENITY tries to' codify the limit of

permissible

nudity and sex. Some argue sible, that the obscenity laws represent the eternal "discrepancy between law and fact," as Thorstein Veblen put it. You can't codify human nature. they say. Natural man is always in con­ flict with social order; Freud recognized this when he spoke of the super-ego which censors and suppresses the "natural" in man.

D.

H.

Lawrence tried

to

raise

"natural"

sex

life to the level of religious sacrament. His great paean to sex is Lady Chatterley's Lover. In a famous essay trying to distinguish obscenity from Lawrence said that pornography ought to be censored, and he explained how it

pornography, can be

sary stimulus in htIDtan life, and we are all grateful when we feel its warm, natural flow through us, like a form of sunshine. *

portrayal of that this is impos­

conduct in the

recognized:

the first place, genuine pornography is almost always underworld; it doesn't come into the open.

In the second, you can recognize it by the insult it offers, invariably, to sex, and to the human spirit.

Pornograp,)iy is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it. Thtlt is unpardonable.

The insult to the human body, the insult to a vital human relation­ ship! Sex is a very powerful, beneficial and neces-

In

.

.

.

On the other hand it is

able to take and

speech

press.

tolerant about

intellectually fashion­

libertarian stand

a

sex

It

also

is

on

freedom

fashionable

to

of be

in art and literature. But the

moral anarchist is just

as

bad

as

the

censor.

For

example, the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley was launched

with

marine.

It

the

ballyhoo of an atomic sub­ prefatory note by Archibald MacLeish and a scholarly introduction by Mark Schorer. This was to give the book the imprimatur had

a

of a great work of art. The artistic message show

one

ask

the

fulfillment

was

through love thwarted by social convention. This being the purpose and intention of the author, is it valid to ask whether the purpose was fulfilled? May to

of

self

whether the thousands

of

persons

who

gobbled up the book from railroad and drugstore stands found in it what Lawrence, MacLeish, and Schorer said

was

for

descriptions

the

come

clinical

away

there-or did of

from the book with

they read it

sex?

Did

they

Lawrence's in­

sight into the problems of social mobility in the class-structured society in Britain? Did they de­ *Mr. Scher's article is

printed here

without the

tensive documentation with which it

The

was

ex­

prepared.

author will be glad to provide citations and bibliographical information to interested persons.

Spring,

1960

velop a new wisdom about the emotional needs of fully matured human beings?

As for the "truth to life" plea-that the writer

3

has

a

duty

to tell all, that he must be true to

life--how

many "emancipated" persons, genu­ inely in love in the Lawrence sense, ever have written a letter to match the vulgarity of the one

which closes the book? How many

have addressed their

men

ever

casual-in mates-legal Anglo-Saxon terms the gamekeeper uses in telling Lady Chatterley what real love is like?

To ask these questons is to refuse to be badg­ ered by the avant-garde into admitting that since or

the

sex

is life and life is art, therefore sex is art. the fact that sex is a basic and valid

standards, it is protected by the First Amend­ ment; it may advocate adultery

as

much

as

it

may advocate socialism or the single tax. Speech or press may be curbed only if they advocate or

incite to illegal conduct. Movies are under the protection of the First Amendment, and are under state protection through the Four­ they

federal

teenth Amendment, for the

the

due process Amendment.

But

there

were

"liberty" provision of incorporates the First

clause

five

concurring opinions,

of

Given

which The WaH Street Journal commented edi­

of human experience, how much of this impulse is used to distort human needs and values through advertising? How much of mass

law in such

form

communications

hooked

is

to

sadism­

the

masochism

complex, let alone straight lewdness,

in

to

order

marketable?

be

Dr.

Frederick

Wertham in The Seduction of the Innocents de­ scribes the effect of violence and horrors in books

comic

read

children.

by

Felix

Justice

torially, "Supreme Court opinion that leaves the a disarray must spread woe among those who must later

the other

come

justices agreed

before the bar." All

that the

movie ought

to be shown, but with widely differing opinions­

and each had to explain his stand because it was different from that of Justice Stewart.

Harlan, with Frankfurter and Whittaker con­ curring, said: (1) Stewart went too far in holding

Frankfurter calls this sordid exploitation of man's

the New York statute unconstitutional. The statute

natural impulses not only dirt for dirt's sake but "dirt for money's sake." What is the point where

of

harm

and

begins

needed? What

dom of

where

restraints

social

are

the proper boundaries to free­ expression as guaranteed by the First are

Amendment?

meets the

requirement of setting up a definition "obscenity" which is definite enough for pre­ dictability and enforcement. The statute says ob­ scenity shall be that material whose "dominant effect is ertftic or pornographic, or which portrays acts of sexual immorality, perversion or lewd­ ness

II The United States Supreme Court has been wrestling with the problem for some years now, and the difficulties we as individuals might have in delimiting the areas of freedom and control are matched by the diversity of opinions ex­ pressed by the Supreme Court [ustices. Almost every decision has separate concurring and var­ ious dissenting opinions. These court splits are indicative of their own humanity in this difficult area.

Let us look at

recent Supreme Court decision,

a

Kingsley Pictures v. Regents (1959), involving the movie, Lady Chatterley's Lover. A license to show the movie had been denied by the New York Board of Regents, granted such power by state law. The Supreme Court reversed the finding that the movie "alluringly portrays adultery as proper

court

ruled

the

First

and

it

interfered

even

and

held

that

such

behavior"

The

Fourteenth

with

the

it

could

shown.

be

suppression violated Amendments

right

to

because

advocate

ideas,

unpopular ideas.

Justice Potter Stewart wrote the

majority opin­

ion: Though the movie portrays and even advo­ cates conduct contrary to legal and moral

4

.

.

.

as

proper

patterns of conduct."

This

definition, Harlan argued, is sufficient to make the statute valid, for it did not intend to make punishable the advocacy of adultery. (2) The movie, far from any advocacy at all, merely portrays a pathetic love triangle but contains nothing remotely inciting to the commission of adultery. (3) Rather than by sweeping definitions or generalizations in this area, the process of constitutional judgment makes the Supreme Court final board of censors, whether it likes it or not.

"The court cannot hope ultimately to spare itself a

the necessity for individualized adjudications," he said.

Black, concurring, took issue with this last point: he objected to judicial censorship. The justices of the Supreme Court are "especially unsuited to make the kind of value judgments to whether movies

as

good or bad for the local communities." If every judge has to view the movie and make a subjective judgment, then the statute is meaningless for lack of predictability as to when it might be violated, because who can tell what the judge might decide? are

Frankfurter concurred but

replied to Black on

the problem of judicial censorship. "As one whose taste in art and literature hardly qualified him for

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

the avant-garde, I

am

more

surprised, after

than

viewing the picture, that the New York authori­ ties should have banned Lady Ch.atterley's Lover." He found that the movie was not "pornog­

raphy" in the sense of Lawrence's essay, quoting "pornography is the attempt to insult sex." It is the duty of the judge to make such determinations "instance by in­ stance and case by case." Due process does not the writer's statement that

permit the establishment of a definition of ob­ scenity which would turn into a Procrustean bed.

by Parliament. It gave magistrates power to grant warrants to police to search suspected prem­ ises and seize and destroy such material when evidence of a sale or possession was presented.

Lord Campbell said: "The measure was intended to apply exclusively to works written for the single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth and of

a

nature calculated to shock the

common

feelings of decency in a well-regulated mind." v.

The following year the famous case of Regina Hicklin was tried. A militant Protestant so­

Douglas, with Black concurring, said that any licensing of movies is a form of prior restraint or censorship prohibited by Near v.

Minnesota

ciety had published The Confessional unmasked: showing the Depravity of the Roman priesthood, the iniquity of the Confessional, and the Ques­ tions put to Females in Confessions. Sir Alexander

In New York the movie exhibitor must

Cockburn, C.J., affirmed the seizure and destruc­

make

application for a license. If he is turned he may appeal to the state Board of Regents, which again can turn him down. Then

tion of 22 volumes and said: "The test of obscenity

down

is whether the tendency of the matter charged

he

obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and

in 1931.

must

the

go' to

courts.

movies

Since

are

protected by the First Amendment, such prior restraint is wrong. If it is permitted for movies, what is to prohibit a statute making the publica­ tion of newspapers

subject to licensing? Both are First Amendment activities. The only legal way is by a proper arrest and prosecution for every violation of the state obscenity law, with a judicial determination and the right to a trial by jury.

Clark, concurring, said the decision should have clear the difference between advocating and depicting. Had the movie depicted acts of lewdness and immorality, the refusal of a license made

into whose hands

fall.

a

publication of this

as

sort may

"

The

emphasis of the Hicklin test was

a

"tend­

ency to deprave and corrupt." It meant

variously a tendency to (1) arouse impure thoughts, (2) encourage a person to impure conduct, or (3) en­ danger the prevailing public morals. It was a "dangerous tendency" doctrine, with no proof admitted of either the intention of the author

or

of the possible effect on the audience.

The test of intention raised

or

motive of the writer

left, after an attempt to reconcile the various views, give us little view of the skeleton. Precisely what is obscenity and how

in the Bradlaugh Although it was specifically rejected by the judge, again Sir Alexander, it was applied by the jury. Mrs. Annie Besant, the noted theosophist, and Charles Bradlaugh were prosecuted for pub­ lishing a pamphlet advocating birth control. Up to this time, prosecution had been for porno­ graphic language or depiction, but not for gen­

may the courts determine a violation.?

eral theme. The Chief Justice

would have been proper;

merely advo­

since it

cated, the statute was not violated and the refusal to

grant the license to the exhibitor Here

indeed

is

a

chewed-over

was

wrong.

carcass:

even

the bare bones

was

The term "obscenity," from the Latin obscenus for evil-looking or filthy, had its origin in the com­ law and came to be defined

as

material "of­

decency or expressing or suggesting unchaste or lustful ideas, or being im­ modesty

pure, indecent

or

or

lewd." Motive

or

intention

was

immaterial; the test was solely whether the mat­ deprave or corrupt persons likely

ter tended to

to be susceptible to immoral influences.

But the prosecution for the misdemeanor of ob­

scenity land:

was

in

Spring,

found insufficient in Victorian

1857

1960

Lord

Campbell's

later

to

the

defense,

was

but he felt

openly

sym­

it his

duty guilty if the work tended "to vitiate or corrupt the morals of youths and others, and to bring them into a state of wickedness, lewd�ess and debauchery." The jury found the book "calculated to corrupt public mor­ als, but we entirely exonerate the defendants from under the law to find them

III

mon

years

case.

pathetic

fensive to

ten

Act

was

Eng­ passed

corrupt motives." The Chief Justice insisted was a verdict of guilty, but he was ready to discharge them. However, Mrs. Besant had made some scathing references to the proceed. ing, though not about the judge, at a public meet­ ing during the trial, and the judge held them in contempt of court. Later, in a rather muddy appeal, the finding of guilty was overturned. any

this

5

overturned the conviction of

IV

seller under The Hicklin "dangerous tendency" rule was fol­ lowed in the United States: it was the formula used in customs

cases

under the laws of 1842 and

law

failed

therefore

a

to

was

a

New York book­

state

obscenity

law because

the

define

"obscene

literature"

and

so

vague and indefinite it

was

in­

enough

capable of enforcement on a uniform basis. The same defect of vagueness was found by the Supreme Court in 1952 when the exhibition of a movie was banned on the grounds that it violated the New York prohibition against "sacrilegious" movies. The court took jurisdiction of the case by holding that movies are protected by the First Amendment through the liberty provision of the

"Even

due

by the post office by laws

1857 and 1873. nor

1930

the total effect of the book

was applied in Tragedy by Theodore

when An A mencan

Dreiser

An

of 1865 and

Neither the test of intention of the author

held objectionable in Massachusetts. passage taken out of context was

was

isolated

to determine obscenity. The court said: assuming great literary excellence, artis­ tic worth and an impelling moral lesson, there is nothing essential to the history of the life of its principal character that would be lost if those "

passages were omitted.

This was the situation in 1933 when U.S. District

Judge John M. Woolsey was called upon to decide the right of customs officials to seize Ulysses

by James Joyce. He asked himself a number of ,questions far beyond the tests laid down in the Hicklin Was

case:

of the

the intent

suality

author

obscenity? No,

or

to

he said.

as

and motives.

In

their

of

treatment

the

same

When

the

conviction

Hecate County

was

on

Wilson's

Memoirs of

held obscene in New York

Supreme Court, the court split four to four, and Justice Jackson objected to the whole proceeding on the vague charge of obscenity saying, "If the

doing

so

as

a

whole tend to stir up sex sexually impure or lustful

rather than

isolated

passages,

a child or psycho­ possible effect, (3) on a normal but mature person, and (4) path, the judgment of literary critics as to its artistic

not

on

merits.

grounds,

a

number of decisions

fol­

banning of E squire magazine from the mails by the postmaster general was over­ turned in 1942 by the Supreme Court, because the postmaster was not given the right by statute to choose between good and bad literature; The

otherwise he would become

a

censor

and could

regulate public taste. In 1948 the Supreme Court 6

in

example, Edmund Wilson's Memoirs was held obscene in New York Hecate County of

he

the

On these

For

would be naturally and habitual­

and established four aspects of the test for ob­ scenity: (1) the purpose of the author, (2) the

lowed.

differed

books.

not in New York and Pennsylvania.

impulses or lead to thoughts in a mature and prudent person? No, for such a person would read the book as a whole, not in isolated passages; so the book could not be considered prurient.

Judge Augustus Hand of the Federal Court of Appeals upheld the decision of Judge Woolsey

effect

have

but not in California. God's Little Acre by Erskine

I

dominant

magazines, and newspapers.

Still the test for obscenity remained difficult, because all statutory language is necessarily vague: legal language cannot be as scientifically precise as a mathematical formula. State courts

Caldwell was found obscene in Massachusetts but

"It must

Did the book

Amend­

no­

believe, by the type of folk" depicted. always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season spring."

ly used,

Fourteenth

sen­

sincere work of art? Yes, the author was writing an experimental work trying to probe used "words

the

were

exploit

a

into human minds

of

put in the same position on freedom of speech and press as books, pamphlets, Movies

"I detect

where the leer of the sensualist."

Was this

clause

process

ment.

court decided constitutional issues

on

the merits

of literary works, it would become the High Court

of Obscenity.

"

V How, then, can the court avoid becoming "the High Court of Obscenity"? One line of reasoning holds this can be done by setting standards for obscenity which can be applied equally and uni­ versally on a clearly enunciated set of tests. The problem is not different from those of sedition or contempt of court, where Justice Holmes for­ mulated "the clear and present danger" doctrine.

The obscenity cases fall into the very trap of dangerous tendency, which amounts to thought control. In contempt, the acts punished are those which present a clear and present danger to the administration of justice. In sedition, it is the incitement to an overt illegal act which is the clear and present danger that goes beyond the protected areas of freedom of speech and press.

The same test ought to be applied to obscenity, the argument goes.

The "clear and present" danger doctrine was

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

used in an obscenity case by a Pennsylvania judge

solidated, one under federal the other under state

in 1950. At issue were charges of obscenity against

statute. This was Brennan's test: "Whether to the

widely read books: Sanctuary. and The Wild Palms by William Faulkner; the Studs

average person,

Lonigan trilogy and A World I Never Made by James T. Farrell; and God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell. The statute defined obscenity

material

number of

a

as

material "sexually impure and pornographic."

This, said Judge Curtis Bok,

was

meant to

in­

clude "any writing whose dominant purpose and effect is erotic allurement-that is to say a cal­

culated

and

effective

incitement

to

sexual

de­

sires." The test, he said, was not whether one would permit his teen-age daughter to read the

book; that is a problem for the home and not for the law. Sooner or later she must be familiarized

with the biological facts of life. On choice, he said, "I should prefer my three daughters meet the facts of life in my library than behind a neighbor's barn." Specifically rejecting the rule of "dangerous tendency" doctrine in Regina v.

Hicklin, the judge said the criminal law is not the custodian of people's morals; it can be applied only when "the peace and order that free men need for the shaping of their common destinies ...

"The causal connection between the book and criminal behavior must appear beyond a able doubt," he said. The statute may be

reason­

applied police power in derogation of free

speech and press "only when there is reasonable and demonstrable or

cause

to believe that

misdemeanor has been committed

as

a

crime

the per­

ceptible result of the publication." To him the "tendency" doctrine was not enough, because there was too much room for individual opinion and taste, even among judges; there must be proof of a proximate causal relation beween the work and criminal behavior.

The Model Penal Code in 1957 tried, in the following language, to set a standard which would prevent the need for a "High Court of Obscenity":

Obscenity is defined in terms of material which ap­ peals predominantly to prurient interests in sexual matters and which goes beyond customary freedom of expression in these matters. We reject the pre­ vailing tests of tendency to arouse lustful thoughts or desires, because it is unrealistically broad for a society that plainly tolerates a great degree of erotic interest in literature, advertising and art, and because regulation of thought or desire unconnected with overt misbehavior raises the most acute stitutional as well as practical difficulties.

con­

Spring,

U.

1960

taken .

.

S. in which two

commu­

of the appeals to prurient The Hicklin test, judging obscenity the

.

as

a

dominant

theme

whoZe

by the effect of isolated passages upon the suscep­ tible

person,

might

well

encompass

material

legitimately treating with sex, and so it must be rejected

as

unconstitutionally restrictive

of

the

freedoms of speech and press."

In Roth, Brennan tried to lay down

a yardstick obscenity and thus prevent the court from becoming the "High Court of Obscenity." Police­ men, prosecutors and judges could apply this test.

To those who asked, Is the language of the test precise and definite enough for fair enforcement?

Brennan replied: "Lack of preciseness is not itself offensive to the requirement of due process" be­ cause "the Constitution does not require im­ possible standards." He replied to the semantic objection by saying that all language has some degree of impreciseness. The words of the stat­

for

and of his definition give a proper degree of warning. He continued: "Sex and obscenity are

utes

sex

in

a

manner

appealing

to

...

deals with

prurient interest.

The portrayal of sex, e.g. in art, literature and scientific works, is not itself sufficient reason

deny material the constitutional protection of of speech or press. Sex, a great and mysterious force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind throughout the ages." The yardstick was "the application of community standards." Such de­ terminations usually are questions of fact for the jury, for the jury is the representative of the community; it tests in tort actions such questions as "reasonable prudence" and in criminal cases the problem of criminal intent. This was Bren­ to

freedom

nan's answer.

But-as usual in obscenity

cases reaching the Supreme Court in recent years-Brennan's col­ leagues on the bench had their own ideas. For example, Chief Justice Warren, though concurr­ ing, said he wanted to make sure that intention, or "scienter," was understood to be part of the test for obscenity. The court ought to determine, he said, whether, as in all other criminal matters, there was willful and knowing intention to appeal to prurient interests. Otherwise the definition of Brennan might be taken to be broad enough to

with

the

arts

and

sciences

and

com­

munications in general.

This test was applied in 1958 by Justice Brennan v.

interest

interfere

VI in Roth

applying contemporary

standards,

not synonymous. Obscene material

is violated."

in exercise of

ity

cases

were

con-

Justice Harlan dissented. Brennan's test, he said, opened the door to "easy labeling" and to

7

jury verdicts instead of "facing up to the tough individual problems of constitutional judgment in­ volved in every obscenity case." It is the courts who protect constitutional rights, not juries. He added: "Many juries might find Joyce's Ulysses or

Boccaccio's Decameron obscene." Harlan also

objected

to the decision

on

the federal

case:

he

obscenity wasn't the kind of crime against legis­ late under their police power and therefore was

wondered whether

which the states alone could

the control of the federal government.

"Congress has no substantial power over sexual morality," he argued.

Douglas and Black dissented: Brennan's test was a form of thought control outlawed by the First Amendment. His test for obscenity was "purity of thought," so the punishment was for "thoughts provoked, not for overt acts or anti­ social conduct. This test cannot be squared with outside

our

decisions under the First Amendment."

outlined their reasoning

as

follows:

They

(1) The test

reign, because anything may arouse lustful or prurient thoughts-music, a painting, etc. (2) No proof has ever been made by sociologists or psychiatrists that reading of

gives the

free

censor

questionable

material

are

certain to win."

(4) The First Amendment has nothing to do with the moral code: that is why it is given a preferred position in the constitutional structure, and neither the courts nor the legis­ latures can "weigh the values of speech against silence." Concluded Douglas: "I would give the broad sweep of the First Amendment full support. the

same

confidence

in

the

noxious literature

to

reject people economics, politics,

in their

held to determine whether the be suppressed

or

ability of as

I have

any other field."

year,

the

Supreme Court upheld

the power of a state to enact legislation giving judges the right to act against obscenity by in­ junction. Involved in Kingsley Books v. Broum was were

a

New York

hampered

statute, adopted because police their fight on obscenity. If

in

they were limited to the usual method of making an arrest for each offense, the trial and conviction of the dealer on misdemeanor charges could not stop the traffic. The sale goes on during the long wait for the trial to

come

up;

after conviction

the dealer may turn right around and continue his trade in the materials. The New York Legis-

8

should Justice

punished. majority opinion, up­ held the statute. This was not prior censorship by the city officials or the judge, he said, and therefore did not violate Near v. Minnesota; a final judicial determination was made on the question of obscenity in a court proceeding. Fol­ lowing his basic reasoning in many other cases, Frankfurter held that a state under its police power had the right to define crimes so long as they were not clearly unreasonable and in viola­ tion of the constitution. The Legislature here had

determined that the danger from obscenity de­ manded this kind of action.

Warren, Douglas,

and

dissented.

Black

The

Chief Justice objected that the statute put books on trial without previously stated standards of

criminality. The proceeding was an equity action and not a criminal action. "It savors too much of book burning," he said.

paralyzing power of previous censorship; and (2) obscenity should be determined case by case; this procedure in equity is like the injunction action

held

unconstitutional

Near

in

v.

Min­

nesota; it does violence to the First Amendment by setting up judicial prior restraint on

publication.

The licensing of movies generally has been upheld in court decisions-despite the reserva­ tions Douglas and Black stated in the obscenity dissents. In addition Douglas, in the Murdock case (1943), upheld the rights of Jehovah's Wit­ to

sell

and

disseminate

their

literature

licensing, because the business and so­ cial function of a First Amendment activity can­ not be separated. Douglas and Black dissented in the Corona Independent case (1953) in which they doubted that an equal and nondiscrimi­ natory right-to-do-business tax could be imposed without

VII same

material

and the dealer

Frankfurter, writing the

nesses

In the

temporary in­ regular hearing would be a

(3) The test of "that

the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines

have

a

Douglas and Black said this again was a viola­

munity" is bad because in the "battle between

our

junction,

after which

tion of the First Amendment protection of free­ dom of speech and press: (1) It gives the state

caused

which offends the common conscience of the com­

I

for seizure of the material and

delin­

has

ever

quency or criminal conduct.

lature provided that the chief legal or executive officer of a municipality could obtain an order

on

a

newspaper, because it

was

a

tax

on

a

First

Amendment

activity. But the licensing of movies can take place only when basic rights are not violated, the courts have held. A typical case

was

that

of

1954

of

American

Civil

Liberties

City of Chicago in which Justice Walter V. Schaefer of the Illinois Supreme Court held the Chicago licensing act legal.

The effect of such decisions is to give the Union v.

NORTHWESTERN

TRI -QU ARTERL Y

police

the

board

censor

court to sit as

to badger the permit the equity

power

then to

movie exhibitor and

a one-man censor.

basic rule that

They violate the

be tested only by obscenity a legal arrest under a criminal statute and a due can

process court hearing. Historically, equity action is permitted only when (1) there is no adquate

remedy at law, and (2) there is danger of ir­ reparable harm. Police censor boards have been held illegal in many decisions; the police have only one legal way to enforce an obscenity law­ to make an arrest and go to trial. Supreme Court decisions on movie licensing remain unclear.

form of prior activity? Can movies be treated differently in this regard than newspapers and magazines?

Must each obscenity case be determined on a case-by-case basis, making the court the supreme board of censors, or is the yardstick of "prurient interests" definite enough?

Are Black and Douglas right in asserting that this area of morals is best left to the good sense

right to a jury? Is an injunction

Thus, some advances have been made in clari­ fying the limits of restrictions on freedom of the press because of obscenity. Various elements in the test for obscenity are: The work must be

judged as a whole, not by an excerpt. The prurient matter must color the work as a whole.

It must affect

a

normal mature person, rather

than a child or a psychopath.

It must have artistic purpose rather than be dirt for dirt's sake or appeal to prurient interest.

It is proper if its main purpose is to way

of life

realistically,

region,

a

or

portray a historical

matter.

The dominant effect must be literary or artistic or

scientific rather than to

arouse

sexual desires.

But when all of this is said, there still is room left for the kind of differences of opinion which

split the Supreme Court in its recent deci­ on obscenity. Here are some unresolved questions:

have

sions

.

How far will the court go in admitting proof of the intention of the author? By his own testi­

mony? By testimony of literary and sociologists, psychologists?

Can

the

judge

or

These

or

person?" Is there

sure

ment of the

of art is toward the greater portrayal of "things as they are," to quote Ernest Hemingway.

ment

Is our law of obscenity part of a whole culture­ complex which inhibits the healthy and natural in a way which psychiatrists agree is unhealthy?

Are natural impulses frustrated only to appear

again

acts

a

surface

I do not

mean

secure

in

de­

Spring,

determined

1960

in

criminal

trial

with

in

a more complete and effective elimination. friction in human enjoyment of the goods of in short, a continually more efficacious existence social engineering. ..

of

are

-

licensing ordinances, even when there is a legal determination through an injunction, with­ be

surrogate

certain kinds of interests. I am content to legal history the record of a continually recognizing and satisfying of human wants

IX

Are

ways

and

satisfied thereby. Experience has shown abundantly how futile legal machinery may be in its attempts to

genuine work of art still be prurient be­ thoughts?

case

masked

that the law should interfere

cause it arouses lustful

in the First Amendment? Or must each

in

every human relation and in every situation where someone chances to think a social want may be

wider or

the

once wrote:

needed to turn a work of art into obscenity?

Can

on

form, socially acceptable but much more dan­ gerous? In short, would nudism and sex be more dangerous than the prevalent and legally accepted expressions of repressed drives in the sadism­ masochism complex which pervades our mass media? The great legal scholar Roscoe Pound

eval­

of

physician examining a patient or of

the artist in his studio painting a nude. The move­

see

degree

some

As

functions be considered with the clinical detach­

uating "community standards"?

How many instances and what lineation of physical description

are

courts.

partly caused by formal or informal censorship, may end and the human body and normal human

critics,

of

way

con­

time may come when the very secretiveness of sex,

pictures on "the aver­

any

a

Amendment

of the problems still facing long as they lean toward the "dangerous tendency" doctrine, they will find, as the courts have in sedition cases, that they will always be operating in the difficult area of legislating taste, morals, and thought. Since taste and morals are relative, it is dangerous to legis­ late from day to day, or from case to case. The

jury estimate the probable

effect of certain words age

art

First

a

of the individual and that any other method sists of thought control? the

VIII

of

restraint

al­ the

The conclusion is difficult. the

If the members of

United States

Supreme Court cannot agree, how can we ordinary mortals agree?

9

literary "masterpieces" of the Century which were banned for ob­ scenity and then released for public consumption were James Joyce's Ulysses and D. H. Lawrence' Lady Chatterley's Lover. Both writers fought cen­ sorship--of their own works. But what did they The two great

Twentieth

other?

EHmann, in his brilliant biography, James Joyce, reports that Joyce remarked of Lawrence, "That man writes very badly." Then Ellmann continues in a footnote: think

of

each

Richard

When

Lady Chatterlf?1/'s Lover began to vie with Ulysses as a book for tourists in Paris to buy, Joyce

asked Stuart Gilbert to read him some pages from it.

He listened carefully, then pronounced only one word: "Lush!" On Dec. 17, 1931, he wrote Miss Weaver (his benefactress) of Lady Chatterley's Lover: "I read the first two pages of the usual sloppy English, and S.G. read me a lyrical bit about nudism in the wood and the end which, outside of D. H. Lawrence's country at any rate, makes all the propaganda for itself." Lawrence had reciprocal feel­ ings about Ulysses; as he said to Frieda Lawrence: ''The last part of it is the dirtiest, most indecent, obscene thing ever written. Yes it is, Frieda It is filthy." ....

One way out is to adopt the so-called "scin­ rule. Several recent cases have held that

tilla"

scintilla

a

of

evidence

of

artistic, literary,

or

scientific purpose is enough to justify publication.

This is

and extreme

facile, specious, position; purpose or intent is a deeply subjective factor.

To devise a satisfactory test demands considera­ a

tion of all three elements: purpose, content, and impact. The scintilla test avoids an objective criterion based upon the content itself and ignores the

problem of community standards and prob­ reasonable

standards, up realistic grounds, is contained in a re­ cent study by a husband and wife team of psy­ based

attempt

to

set

on

the

Drs.

Edward

and

Kron­

chiatrists, Phyllis hausen, entitled Pornography and the Law. They distinguish between hard core obscenity-of Law­ rence's "pornography"-and erotic realism. Hard

obscenity "does stimulate, in the vast ma­ jority of people, what the law calls 'lascivious core

"

It is aphrodisiac. thoughts' or 'lustful desires.'

It purposely builds up erotic excitement by a suc­

cession of erotic

scenes.

the other hand, "in­

human

needs-their

proportionate share

in

the

particular medium of the artist." In short, the artist is trying to tell the whole truth about life.

The Kronhausens suggest that both intent and may be derived from the content and

impact

structure

of the

material.

They reject the

test

of prevailing community standards by showing the extent of moral hypocrisy in our

society, as seen

for example by the Kinsey reports of the var­ iances in sexual standards in geographic, cul­ and socio-economic groups. They reject the test of possible impact by denying Wertham's

tural,

thesis that reading of erotic literature or horror comics is related to anti-social behavior. They agree with Dr. Theodore Reik that Freud's theory of sublimation is wrong, insisting that sex drives

manifest themselves directly and not in surrogate form.

Anti-social conduct is based on hostility aggression that has nothing to do with sex, hor­ ror books, or suggestive 'films, except in extreme cases when they act as triggering devices.

The authors contend that "Sexual behavior in all its 'normal' and non-hostile 'deviant' varieties

is basically instinctual, though its modes of ex­ On the other pression are largely 'learned.' hand, sexual criminality and delinquency are the "

social symptoms of sick individuals in

a

sick

so­

ciety which has made the satisfaction of some of the basic biological and emotional human needs problematic and often unattainable. "The results of these cultural frustrations manifest themselves

perversions of the natural drives,

in

neu­

rotic and psychotic symptoms-as a socially con­ ditioned variety of the latter-in delinquency or criminal behavior."

The real problem,

they argue, lies deeper. The Revolution permitted a Russians of deal sex great freedom, but with the establish­ of the Stalin ment dictatorship this was ended. the traditional home of sex freedom, has France, to censor erotic literature under the author­ begun itarian De Gaulle regime. The Kronhausens after the 1917

conclude:

Its themes and methods,

usually clustered in groups and determined by a kind of content analysis, are: seduction, deflora­ tion, incest, the permissive-seductive parent­ figure, profaning the sacred, dirty words, super­ sexed males, nymphomaniac females, Negroes and Asiatics as sex symbols, homosexuality, and flagellation. Erotic realism, with a venerable

10

on

sists on giving the sexual interest-and other basic

in the

able impact.

An

historic literary tradition,

Sexual freedom can be the privilege only of a free society. Like dynamic psychology, it does not flour­ ish in a climate of political tyranny and economic restriction. The more actual democracy a society allows, the more sexual freedom is granted to its members. The more authoritarian the political or­ ganization of a society, and the more discriminatory its economic structure, the less sexual freedom can it afford to grant to the mass of the population.

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

David Rubin David I. Rubin,

majoring in English Literature and Composition, is a senior

in the College of Liberu] Arts. He transferred to Northwestern from Colgate in

1956. Last year he spent in Israel, first working on a communal farm (kibbutz), then studying Hebrew in Jerusalem. At Northwestern he won a Shuman Award in 1958 for excellence in writing, and is

presently an undergraduate editor of TRI-QuARTERLY, of which he was one of the founders. He has received a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship for 1960-61, and win attend Harvard for graduate study in English.

The Line drawing is by Marilynn Lucille Smith, graduate of the Art Institute, and an artist for Time magazine.

THE

THE PROPHET SIMCHA TENNENBAUM SAT GAILY beside of

pageant in Israel,

heaps of almonds and strings of dried figs. The hucksters bleated .one against the other, singing out their bargains, BARGAINS! And away down

and he was glad. Six months in a kibbutz in the Negev, and two months half starving in Tel Aviv

the hill where the city fell into the sea, the Medi­ terranean lay glimmering, waiting for Simcha.

the window of the Tel Aviv traffic.

-he had had

bus, enjoying

the

his

day

It

was

last

enough. With great joy, he contem­

plated going back into the "Exile." Let the Israeli chauvinists call it that! He felt no real attachment to

his

Israel, and on what else could he act except feelings? To have stayed longer would have

been uncomfortable.

It would have been unnat­

ural.

Below him

spread the Tel Aviv bus station, an glass of parti-colored sands tilting in the noon sun-specks, half the nation dropped through the station on a warm morning. Tel Aviv, Hill of he was rolling now on the crest of that Spring hill, and it was the middle of April, a balmy blue day. It was a day of triumph. Simcha was not deserting Israel. The country would survive with­ out the personal conning of Simcha Tennenbaum.

He was going home, home to Chicago to pick hour

...

his

And he was young, twenty-one lay open before him wide as the Mediterranean Sea. Wider. Simcha regretted noth­ ing. up

studies.

years old. Life

And he as

was

as

anxious to return to New York

he had been anxious to leave.

The bus stalled in traffic, and Simcha sat back to

breathe

in

the

last

humid

pleasures

of

the

city. The street was a struggle of wheels. Donkey carts and motorcycles, ancient lorries and De Soto taxis, the bus clogged in their midst-all yelled and bullied both ways up and down the narrow street.

Along the curbs pedlars had spread oranges and bananas, and there were

Spring,

1960

Looking down from the window, he saw a fish­ dragging a cart of herring and carp laid on a white bed of splintered ice. The fishman smiled up silver-eyed at Simcha, and wiped his scaly hands on an apron of blood. He lifted a monger

fat carp toward the window, and the young man turned away. It was true that Israel had not been

what he had anticipated, but what

ever

any young man, he had come to Israel

is? Like­ as

to

a

New

World, the America of the East, hoping to be grafted to a new life, to be transformed. But Simcha had not changed, he knew that now, and all he had found in the new world, all he had really found was old Ralph GarfinkeL Ralph in Hebrew became Raphael, but the man was still a forty-four year old bachelor from the Whitechapel district in London. They had both come under a government program that provided

roundtrip fare in exchange for a year's work on kibbutz in the Negev. The program was in­ tended to encourage immigration, but it had col­ lapsed while Simcha and Raphael were on the a

kibbutz, and Simcha had convinced the Jewish Agency to let Raphael and himself leave the coun­ try three months early. A lack of response was given as the official reason for ending the pro­ gram, but in fact the offer had only attracted desperadoes and runaways like Raphael, metals too soft for the pioneer mold.

Simcha thought back to the first time he had seen Raphael. He had been shown his room in

11

that he would turn up. Simcha

the

and he

new

would not let him spoil this last day.

kibbutz, and there he had found Raphael, his roommate, brooding with his hands in his at the edge of a cot. A gauze bandage was lap unraveling around one leg, and when Simcha had asked him what had happened, Raphael had mumbled, "Snake bite," and nothing more had passed between them for three days. Then on the third evening, after Simcha had brought sup­ per to the ailing man, he dared to ask Raphael why he had come to Israel. "Why?" Raphael had blinked up from his dinner with the expression of a benign insect. "Why?" He feared that he had in­ truded too deep, but Raphael was only sounding.

"To get rich quick," he had answered deliber­ ately, and Simcha had been afraid even to smile.

Then Raphael had laughed, and, pulling at a fore­ lock, had said, "The truth is I'm as lost as you are." They were comrades. "What's that book you've been reading?" he had asked. "Existial­ ism? Ah, Existism. I admire a fellow that's got brain

a

two. I need

or

someone

that

under­

can

He decided to wait another few minutes chance that

their hotel. he

travellers

but he did not

the

station,

for

his

and

Simcha

friend's

face,

Raphael anywhere. Raphael promised to be waiting in the station with their baggage when he returned from Jerusalem with the ship tickets. They still had to travel to the port in Haifa by six P.M. It was already see

had

past noon, and Simcha began to worry that Ra­

phael had

not

no later than

come.

They could leave Tel Aviv

four.

Raphael had refused to go with Simcha on the

trip

Jerusalem.

to

He

had

said

that

he

would

feel guilty walking down the holy streets, now that he

leaving. Walking where the whole Jewish

was

past was paved into the roads, he would have felt like

a

traitor.

Curiously, Raphael had begun

to

cleave to the land in these last days, and he spoke very

little, cocooning himself in silence.

When

all

the passengers

had

gone

down,

he

slipped his knapsack over one shoulder and step­ ped off the bus. Raphael was nowhere in sight, and Simcha cursed him in Arabic, but he was not

surprised that he had failed to appear. It was like Rapha-el; he had sloughed off what responsibilities he could

on

passed

the younger man, until Simcha had

practically become his patriarch. When they had known they were leaving the kibbutz,Raphael had

station, streets that seemed

to 'breed up mer­ chants' stalls to prey on the traffic. Candy butch­ ers went bawling down the walks, shouldering

of

trays

sesame

sweets. Yemenite

custom. The old clothes dealers, pot menders, cob­

blers,

the

newshawks-all

"We've become real partners here, split up now, right?" He had

you and 1. Shame to

been flattered at Raphael's

affection, and had pit­ they came to Tel Aviv together. But he could not really be angry with poor Raphael,

12

orbited

the

around

Simcha knew it all, and yet he was estranged from it. Even now he hung back, feeling that it was not his. Had he missed it all?

Had he stayed blind to something? No, he was done with it now, the lovely and the unlovely.

Fondly at the last, impersonally personal, he ern­ terminal.

braced the street. some

a

souvenir,

small thing that might evoke the

spirit of

the land. Simcha smiled to himself that that

was

but still he wanted it. Wander­

tourist's whim, ing through the stalls, the young man talked prices with the sellers, found flaws in their goods, bar­ gained with a young boy over a shawl he did not want. He was pleased with his mastery of the spoken tongue, and he played with the tradesmen, smirking and brazen. It was as if the Hebrew language were his mask and foil. But still he walked heartless, and found no fitting token.

Coming to the end of the street, there was no­ where left to go. He stopped, and around him trilled and gurgled the babel of the world's lan­ guages. Alone, without even Raphael to quip with, he stood a foreigner, afraid to open his mouth.

He wanted only to get out now. But the months had not been wasted. During the time he had been on the kibbutz, Simcha had decided to go into medicine. It was a noble thing to do with one's life, and it was sensible. The thought of being servant and master in one attracted him, and he a

was

keen to

resume

his

studies.

He had

come

green and indecisive to Israel, and it had been

an

outing, a test of his strength. And behold! per­ sonal complexities, doubts, the destructive forces within a man, these things as if by magic had been

ied him. So

boys strolled

hand in hand amid the public wonders, an Eastern

could afford to relax.

go of it together in Tel Aviv,"

from

Bumping his way through the crowd, out into the little streets around the

"We could make

a

the

on

and then

waterfront and fetch him

asked him if he could come with him to Tel Aviv. he had said.

come,

He remembered that he had wanted

turned into

the

scanned

Raphael would still

go down to the

stand my ideas."

The bus

sure

was

resolved

in

him.

Simcha

felt

healthy,

he

walked quickly back into the bus station, Raphael had not come. Poor Raphael, he thought. He had wild ideas, but he was a decent man. It was pitiful to see him without strength, reduced to helpless depenman without will, a He

but

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

dency. Lately, Simcha had had to coax him even eat. Raphael kept repeating over and over

to

that he was

a

failure, and Simcha had asked him

how he failed. Had he failed to

"Yes," the elder

had

man

save

the world?

whispered,

"I have

I should worry about what they do? Ha! That's all I have to do is fill my head with the carryings on

"You're leaving

II, he had fought with the Jewish Brigade, come

aren't you, Mr.

"America," she sighed. "America. It's to take

Arabs, he had told Simcha, but to give the boys courage, to let them know they were not alone in the fight.

A shadowy form passing down trench-lines, whispering in the night, Englishman to Hun­ garian, to Pole, to Syrian. Jew to Jew, man to man. Not alone. His gentle hands upon the wound­ ed, Raphael, the healer. Silhouetted against the whiteness of the moon, gazing up in wonder that the heavens could look so pure. Marching dusty by day, eyes burning. Spirit of the fight, the soul

Your father must be very

started out

have to chase

of

the

station.

He

would

Raphael only this last time. When

ship touched Marseilles, he would be free of the man. It was this last small delay, no more

the

annoying

than

a

fly

over

a

sleeper's

nose.

But

damn the inconvenience of the man! Why did he have to get mixed up with such a fellow?

As he passed through the station gate and into bright street, Simcha found himself squint­

the

ing at three beggars, blind men, holding hands.

Shuffling and scraping, they crept along the wall, their three bodies linked into one, a protoplasmic flowing. Socketed heads topped with purple tams, laughing rags covering their shames, they sway­ ed, darkling Eastern men, grinning, their voices rising, falling in a round: For you, Pray for you, We will pray for you.

Simcha stood caught before their three tin cups, rasping one against the other as they waved through the air; then he backed off and boarded a bus for the waterfront to find Raphael.

The Elath Hotel was a sandstone building packed among more sandstone buildings, distin­ guished only by its half-obliterated name shingle.

Raphael was not in the room they shared with a third

transient.

Simcha

questioned the proprietress, who sat perspiring in a flowered cotton dress. "You don't know where he has gone?" he asked again, and suffered her shrewd glances.

"Gone? Gone?" she shrugged heavily. "Mr. Garfinkel walked out the door. Like all the other

guests that

Spring,

come

1960

to

me.

They

come,

they go.

Tennen­

you

both."

to Israel for the first

a

so

nice

trip like you, seeing the whole world.

rich, no? I could have America," she confided, "if I had not been from Poland. I could have been rich there, instead of salted away in this place." She waved her wilted newspaper about the empty lobby.

"Running a fourth class hotel." gone to

It had been listed tourist booklet.

as

fifth

class

in

Simcha's

"Israel lives for the future," he

consoled her.

"And for us old ones, who know enough to live for ourselves?"

in armor.

.

today,

are

time to fight for Jewish independence. Not to kill

Simcha

a

going now?" she cooed.

"Going home, Mrs. Kirshman. Raphael and I

But the man had been through enough. In World and in 1948 he had

guests." She fanned herself with

my

baum? Where

failed to save the world."

War

of

newspaper and flickered her eyelashes at Simcha.

a

"Israel waits for you to die," Simcha put forth sympathetic smile, "just as Moses circled

forty years in the desert until his slaves died."

He left Mrs. Kirshman sighing and fanning, crossing and uncrossing her legs, mouldering in the damp hotel lobby. "Don't forget to say good­ by," she called after him, which meant pay up.

There were thousands like her in Israel, haunted by phantoms of wealth and comfort, their visions stretching across the sea to electrified New York.

The street was bright and quiet. There was little activity between one o'clock and four, when shops closed and people had their dinners and napped. Simcha passed other hotels like the Elath, spread among cheap three-storey apart­ ments, their sandstone walls glittering in the afternoon sun. He walked down Hayarken Street until it met Alienby Road, the main street of the city, climbing westward into town, and end­ ing two blocks east in the sea.

Simcha stood uncertain at the corner. Raphael never strayed far off the waterfront, but where to begin looking for him? The whole business was fantastic, and yet it 'did not surprise. Simcha that Raphael had not met him at the station. Raphael hardly seemed to care about going back to Eng­ land; Simcha had had to convince him that it was best. Well, he could not take the burden of another man's being on him. Raphael's dirty socks all his

over

shaving

the floor back in their room, and still clotted with three-day­

brush

old suds: he had not that

not

care

lay.

Simcha

"Alio!

much,

was

Alio!"

not

he

packed yet.

If he did

to hell with him.

Let him

even

to excite himself now.

going called,

rousing

the

corner

13

kiosk had

man

the

ward

from his

slumber, to ask him if he

Raphael. The little man nodded to­ and said Raphael had passed sea,

seen

about half

hour before; then he closed his How did the kiosk man know, Sim­

an

lifting about his head in the sea breeze.

"What?" he mumbled. "What's that?" His eyes

hair

swam over Simcha's features, then he smiled slightly, and nodded in recognition. "Oh, it's you,

Simcha." He reached out and touched his friend's

eyes again. cha wondered. He always knew.

.face. "Hello, Sirncha."

Perhaps Raphael had gone to say good-by to the English bankteller, his only other friend. They

remember?"

had met him

cash

a

one

day when Simcha had gone to

and

check,

the

teller

had

boasted

to

"A

thirty-year man in the country!" still clerking for the Empire.

Raphael had admired him immediately.

The sea opened blue before him as Simcha came out of Allenby Road and crossed the sea­ side street to the wide promenade above the beach. Standing at the railing, he looked down

Raphael, if

as

he

were

already stretched along the sand. the same everywhere: drowsy and mystical, sand and sun and water. Air, earth, water, and fire. The beach was essence. Stripped, a man could negotiate with himself here.

"You were supposed to meet

me

at the

station,

Simcha, it's a strange thing, the get myself so far off. So deep into things.

I came a long way to get back to you just now."

"You know that we're leaving the country, don't "You know,

way I

you, Raphael?"

"Leaving the country?" Raphael smiled nerv­ ously. "Oh yes, that's right. We were to go today.

You Jerusalem" he pointed west "then back this morning." His finger circled back -

-

at sunbathers

to the waterfront.

Beaches

comprehending the distance covered. "How was the trip?"

"Lovely. I have the tickets. Are you ready to go?" Simcha looked down at the breaking surf, and felt the sheer weight of the man upon him.

Still, the vision of leaving Raphael abandoned and

were

ships were anchored down in Jaffa Har­ They rode like painted things upon the wa­ ter, romances of corroding steel. Another was disappearing below the horizon, a wisp of blue smoke hanging above it. Fast, fast the ship fell Four

bor.

until it blended in the haze at vision's end and

dropped away, a smudge. So Simcha would sail evening, disappearing under the curve of the earth, horizons rising, falling behind, and

forth that

always peering from the bow. Medicine was same, always pushing forward. It was the motion that mattered, it was the struggle that he sought. Simcha thought with a spreading glow that he was sailing back into life.

Turning south, he began to stroll along the walk, passing tramps and vagrants, the sweepings he

the

city. Seaside stragglers, Raphael called of them stood looking out on the sea all day long, as if the sea were about to speak, warming their bones. Far down along the railing, Simcha saw a solitary form, and of

the

them.

Some

when he had taken

another few steps he knew

that it was Raphael. his friend

He

not

He seemed to have

floundering in Tel Aviv had been too

difficulty

much for

imagination, and so they had remained, as Raphael said, partners. But the attachment was nearing an end.

"I've been thinking, Simcha. As usuaL"· Raph­ ael laughed and coughed and cleared his throat.

He looked down at his shoes, sad as two wet spaniels. "I've decided to stay," he said, swal­ lowing, and lifting his face to meet Simcha's.

"I've decided to stay and give it a go." his

Simcha let the words sink in. He never showed

surprise at any revelation. "You're sure?"

"Yes, Simcha. I was just now thinking it through. as a jewel in my brain. If I could only make you see it. The future, I'm thinking about."

Raphael took hold of Simcha's arm, his face shining. "This land will bloom gloriously. Why, it's growing everywhere, everywhere. You can actually feel it, Simcha, can't you? It's young and vital, it will make me young again too."

It's clear

"Then all I've said hasn't much fazed you, has it? You're sailing in the clouds, you're like a kid about this. Look at yourself once; a bachelor,

approached slowly, wanting surprise or frighten him. Raphael was leaning heavily against the railing, looking seaward. He had grown thin living in Tel Aviv, but he had taken on a healthy tan, spending so much time

forty-four years old, no language, no skill, no family here. You're not equipped to stay. But I'm through arguing' with you." He shook Raph­

beside the water.

ael's hand from his

Simcha stood beside him, but Raphael did not stir. "Raphael," he said softly. "Raphay-ye-el,"

"There's the prophecy, you know. We're living in prophetic times. There'll come a day when the

to

he called the

name

in

a

sing-song. "Raphael."

Simcha shook the tranced man's shoulder.

Raphael squinted up

14

at the

intruder, his black

world

will

look to

arm.

Israel.

It's

a

land of

hope,

don't you see, Simcha, the hope of the world."

Raphael believed that Israel had been destined

NORTH WESTERN

TRI-QU ARTERL Y

to lead the world into the

day

of the Messiah.

until

leave

four.

struggled

Raphael

take

to

He foresaw the nations of the earth revolving In

Simcha's knapsack from his wet back, and Sim­

perfect harmony around the fixed star,' J erusa­ Raphael Garfinkel, would his and dispense justice mercy over all. Prophet, Saviour.

But the oracle was sound­ Pope, King, ing again "You don't believe in God, do you, Simcha?

cha

lem. And somehow he,

...

That's too bad. Because what God said is coming to pass right before your eyes, and you can't see it. You're giving it all up. Write it off as an ad­

venture, eh?"

Raphael believed that God inhabited the dark side of the come

who

man

a

He

moon.

belived that there would

would

the

reverse

force

of

gravity, and rising on a huge platform from the North Pole, that man would unite with God. That man would choose a woman, and together they would ascend to God, the most perfect flowers of the species, and that man would progene a new race, sharing life with God in the dark of the moon. God had touched him, he had confided to Simcha, he believed himself that man.

"Go back to London," Simcha said.

England is finished." He with his palm. "The fu­ ture is here. It's a miracle, don't you see? Jews flocking in from every corner of the world. God promised Moses and Abraham before him, and now the promise is kept. We are a nation again, London?

"London?

aside

swept England

nation

a

on

land.

a

We

were

chosen to be

ex­

you know that, and the goyim will fol­ low our light because it was meant to be so. Jus­

amples,

tice and love his

are

here. Here!" It

eloquent

most

statement.

was

"I

am

his final, a Jew.

That's what matters. I can make a life in my own land. I an

be

can

outsider.

Don't

you

just a Jew. No more you that, Simcha, boy? the beauty of it?" He clasped

a

man, not

Don't

see

see

Simcha again. "There'll be others to help me."

Simcha drew back, and took Raphael's ticket from your

the envelope. "Here, Raphael, show it to grandchildren." He started for the Elath to

to

say

Raphael cried. "That's

to

a

man."

He

ran

to

a

nasty thing

catch

up

to

the

striding young man. "I'm going with you to the bus station, at least. Least I can do is see you off.

You've been good to me." Raphael smiled up at his hurrying friend. "Don't think I don't appreci­ he had to trot-skip to keep up with ate "

.

.

sweating from carrying his heavy grip.

.

Simcha.

of the bus station. He had

thirty bus

to

Spring,

1960

Haifa,

just missed the three­

and the next

one

would not

his

brow.

"Whew! in

this

heat. Sunstrokes and all."

Raphael smiled sickly through his ruddy skin. His teeth were green with "How

tartar.

'bout

a

glass

of tea?

You

didn't

have any lunch, did you, Simcha? Let me treat you to a sweet and tea. Good-by present. Oh, I little money." There were several cafes opposite the bus station. "At least we can 'sit have

a

down for a few minutes."

The two men crossed the street and entered one of the open cafes. They dropped the .Iuggage be­ side a table and sat down. Raphael pretended to

read the menu, and Simcha ordered tea and two

cheese-filled buns.

"It's not an easy language, Simcha. on

to it in time.

Oh, I'll get Though you have done remark­

ably well in so short a time."

The tea and cakes were set before them, and Raphael said, "Toda." When the waiter had left, he winked. "That wasn't bad, was it?"

Simcha slumped in his chair and stared through the tawny tea. He held up the glass, and looked through it at Raphael's distorted features. Raph­ ael

chattered

about

what

a

mercenary

brute

charging Simcha for an ex­ tra day because he had stayed beyond two o'clock. He thought that was low. A long silence followed between them. Raphael eyed his bun.

Finally he took a bite from it. "Mmmm," he said. "Very good. Excellent cheese, Simcha. Try a bite.

He took another mouthful, his lips he chewed. "Mmmm. Didn't realize as smacking I was so hungry. That's the way hunger is, though, sneaks up on you. Don't I know?" He laughed and took a swallow of tea.

"Well," Raphael ran on, "we've had our times, haven't we, Simcha? Things we won't forget easi­ ly, memories worth the world." He reflected a moment. "Like that morning in the melon field, Mrs. Kirshman was,

"

It

must

have

covered

dunams

and

dunams, and we were creeping along snipping 'em and pitching 'em, up a row, down a row, never even lifting our heads. My, but that was hard on a' fellow's back. Not for those kib­ butzniks though, never heard them let out a whim­ per. Out-there groggy at 5:30 in the

morning, with

nothing in the belly. Lord, it was brutal. That time, it must have been about seven o'clock when the

Simcha and Raphael stood together in the melee

Raphael blotted

Dangerous running through the streets

remember?

get his things.

"Wait!"

was

"Whew!"

sun

was

just starting

to

burn,

I felt all in,

and straightened up a minute, and there you were.

Me coming down one row, and you going up the other. Out there in the middle of that field with

15

nothing else in sight, nothing but snarled melon vines

all

around to

trip

fellow.

a

did

It

seem

like the end of the world. And what did you

'Doctor

presume?'"

and laughed till tears

"Then

his eyes. it to

I

Livingstone,

struck the table

say?

Raphael

we

pieces with

were

in

broke open that melon. Cut

clipping shears, right out there in the field. And the picking boss, Com­ rade Rosa, glaring at us all the while for eat­ ing up the profits. You and I, standing out there together, laughing and eating. Oh, I shall never forget it, Simcha. A beautiful moment it was."

Raphael shook his head, his face beaming with our

the recollection.

"You know

Simcha smiled faintly. about

ready out.

pulled prophet."

to throw you off the

You

had

a

fine

they

were

place when we the

reputation,

"And what about that sabra girl, Naomi? She really wild about you. She was beautiful to

watch when

you

danced

together.

Like

swamp

grass in the wind. An animal grace, she had. You a

virgin

until

you

went

to

the

kibbutz,

weren't you, Simcha?"

"Why

did

you

never

marry,

Raphael?"

he

countered.

"Never found a girl worthy enough," he answer­

ed directly. "But Naomi, there was Was it hard to say good-by?" ward Simcha.

a

real queen.

Raphael leaned to­

are

going

you

do now,

to

Raphael?

I

mean, what are your plans?"

"Oh, I'll find work somewhere. Get a foothold.

I know a little bookkeeping."

"Half the population are bookkeepers."

"My father was a tailor."

"Three tailors to the city block."

Raphael laughed and threw up his arms. "Oh, something. Do I really seem so hopeless, Simcha? There are times, you know, when I feel no better than those beggars." He pointed to the three blind beggars chanting in the door­ way, their cups clanging together. "Sometimes I'll do

I fear I'll wind up like those fellows in the gutter.

Then

that's

all

swept

away

and

I

am

seized

"You're

a

strange fellow,

hopes and visions. A real extremist, I am.

Do you ever feel those things?"

"I'm afraid

we

don't have much in common,

Raphael." Simcha looked at his watch.

"Maybe you're clever enough not to let your­ feel them," Raphael interpreted. "Or at least not to take such feelings to heart. Do you think you'll ever come back, Simcha?"

"It's not in my plans." self

"Not little.

even

"Then

as

a

few

a

tourist?" more

Raphael sighed

minutes

and

we

a

say

goodby forever. Peculiar thing when you stop to sever the threads, and off you go. It's like seeing you die."

Simcha started. "I'm doing what I want to do."

think of it. Just

"I wrote her a note."

16

"What

up in

was

were

have a steel rod for a backbone." Raphael gulped the rest of his tea.

Simcha.

You

must

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

of

course. But just the same, isn't couples life brings together, tea rs apart? Like us two, coming to Israel just to­ gether, and, different as we are, still becoming pals. It's the timing of the thing strikes me.

And the sympathies that work between people.

"Oh,

yes,

it strange the

Like

us

two, different

as

you say

we

are,

still

something that's kept us stuck together.

Something more than your pity, I mean."

How much did Raphael really know, Simcha

there's

wondered.

"I don't know that we're

as

different

as

you

think. But I wish I could get you to see the Land do.

I

as

I

dream

about

intuition I have. But there's Even

here.

madman like

it

at

room

night. for

a

It's

an

dreamer

Harmless, you see.

The Land needs an imagination, a daring spirit. Boldness. It's a good long time since there's been a real prophet afoot in the world Raphael mused.

"Let's go, Raphael. It's nearly four." They and Raphael slipped Simcha's rose to leave, bun into his pocket. Simcha paid the waiter while Raphael fought the knapsack onto his back again. Together, they went out into the afternoon a

me.

"

"Good-by, Raphael. Good luck."

Raphael shook his hand absently, and raised face, gazing away over the buildings into the deep sky. his

Simcha was afraid he was going to prophesy.

Turning quickly away, he got on the bus and found a seat beside an open window. Raphael stood as before, gaping at the sky. "Raphael!"

Simcha called, taking ten pounds from his wallet, the last of his Israeli money. "Raphael! Have you enough money?"

The bus started and the driver raced the

gine.

A flock of

Raphael, laughing and jeering at him. "Dumb one of them hooted, and they all took jackass! "

up the chant.

Lurching, the bus began to roll into the thick­ ening traffic. "Raphael!" Simcha shouted, lean­ ing far out the window. The elder

...

heat.

"Though I'll admit that the picture around here isn't exactly the fulfillment of a prophecy. Oof! Filthy, diseased slums. No roses blooming here­ abouts. And why are the religious people being trampled under? Old time socialists hanging on­ to political power. But the hope is here. The place is teeming. They need someone like me, Simcha. I have a destiny. I feel God's hand hard onme

" ...

Simcha boarded the bus case, then

sack

came

from

Spring,

the

and stowed his suit­

down again and lifted his knap­ ground. He held out his hand.

en­

newsboys had gathered around

man

stirred

shining, fast-clouding countenanc� "Take the money!

Simcha.

Simcha

and turned his toward

"

rolled the bill into

a

ball and threw

it toward

but it

dropped far short, and the newsboys fell on it, rolling and howling, leaving Raphael straddled on all fours, a dark

him.

Raphael lunged,

shadow amid torn news sheets.

An Arab

boy

ran

alongside the creeping bus,

waving a bunch of poppies, deep red, potent, up toward Simcha. Spring was on the land. Winter wheat that had greened the fields, golding now under the sun. Orchards of apple trees and plum, white and pink-blossomed, fig trees filling sweet. villages studded across the val­ leys through the hills. And everywhere, everywhere, wild poppies were springing.

A land of white

and

"How much?" Simcha called down to the boy.

"Ten grush."

1960 17

Donald T Torchiana This is the sixth of the series of articles

living American poets, written especially for THE TRI-QUARTERLY. Donald Thornhill Torchiana, born in Philadelphia, left coLLege at the age of nineteen to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force. Stationed in England from 1944 until the end of the Second World War, he flew twenty-four missions over Ger­ many as a B-17 pilot with the 8th Air Force. He returned to De Pauw University, and completed his undergraduate studies in 1947. He received his advanced degrees in English Literature (M.A., 1949, Ph.D., 1953) at the State University of Iowa, where he taught as graduate assistant and instructor until coming to Northwestern in 1953. He is an assistant professor in English.

Mr. Torchiana has published a number of articles on recent figures in Ameri­ can

on

and English letters, and is now at work upon a book to be called W. B. Yeats

and the Anglo-Irish Eighteenth Century.

HEART'S NEEDLE: SNODGRASS STRIDES THROUGH THE UNIVERSE THE NAME SNODGRASS

may sound novel for

sparkling new poet, but William De Witt Snod­ grass not only glories in his name, he also hymns it, apostrophizes it in his first volume of poetry, Heart's Needle (New York, 1959), which has al­ ready won the $1000 poetry prize of The Ingram a

Merrill Foundation.

Trained in the poetry work­

shop of the State University of Iowa, Snodgrass, now in his mid-thirties, was Quaker-born, reared in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and has since fol­ lowed one of the likely paths for the contemporary American poet. He took himself through Geneva College, endured the Navy and America's last romantic invasion of the world in World War II, and turned up soon after in Iowa City, resplendent in cast-off Navy costume, great head of hair and flowing beard, and properly abstracted poet's eye.

Now, considerably clipped, he is an established poet, a family man, and a teacher at Wayne State University in Detroit. Unprepossessing as this background may seem-Robert Lowell in the blurb

18

calls the workshop "the most sterile of sterile places"-Heart's Needle is something of a tri­ umph. At its calm, insistent best it has both credo and style: "The world's not done to me; it is what I do; whom

I

speak shall be;

I music out my name and what I tell is who in all the world I am.""

I In Iowa

glory

1948, when I first set eyes on Snodgrass, City was still basking in its self-inflicted as

the Athens

retired-farmer's

of

town

leisurely bus line,

a

the Midwest.

and

county

It

was

a

seat, with

a

good hospital, and a univer-

are by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., publisher. Heart's Needle was copyrighted, 1959,

-Quotations

by William D. Snodgrass.

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

rent boats on the sluggish Iowa

Christmas

at

sell

time,

River, tote parcels

blood

to

the

Catholic

hospital, clerk in a drummers' hotel, sling hash, thresh wheat, or cheer our wives as they went off to work in the morning. To punctuate this grey

round of study and subsistence, we could always into Joe's Airliner, where the fraternity

slide

mob bemused itself in beer, or Kenney's, haunt of the slender-wristed crowd, or the Antlers, a laborer's bar which boasted

a

blind piano player.

We usually went to the last, if only for the fights.

Then

there

the

was

frequent

two-day

poker

game heavily attended by the poets. We also had a basketball team-one year Walter Van 'I'ilburg Clark played on it. Nor should I omit the sprawl­ ing literary set-tos in the invariable small rooms,

filled with shouts and whispers, with the reproduc­

tion of Rouault's "The Old

King" on some wall,

the inevitable name-dropping, and large quantities of Old

Tub,

Yet there

William De Witt Srwdgrass (photograph by Gerda Peterich)

sity of outlandish maverick decency. The school also aspired to be as creative as the state's more celebrated hogs. And it was. In short, after the war, it was just the place for as seedy a group of graduate students in arts and letters as ever fell off the Rock Island Line. Working for advanced degrees in literature and the fine arts, they gave the school a name certainly less deplorable, if not more exciting, than that swished about by the famed Scotch Highlanders, corn-fed lassies of

an

was

obscure Beam whiskey, downed. also the half-finished novel, the

rough draft of a story, the unread source-book, the typescript of poems, the crated pictures, or the last chapter of a thesis sitting in the next room.

The personalities were just as gaga. Aside from the usual run of intense New Yorkers, edgy disciples of the Southern Fugitives, and spruced­ up rubes (me) from small Midwestern colleges, there were some real stars, especially among the writers. One was a Golden Gloves heavyweight who had also been

a

star

reporter; another had

been a sax man in the Krupa band. Don Peterson,

played with a French basketball friend, Herb Wilner, a short-story writer, had been captain of the Brooklyn College poet,

a

team.

had

His

football team. Two others systematically swindled

crackpot economist out of $20,000 that he sank a newspaper they edited, which piled up under a porch. Many .were from Harvard, Yale,

a

into

18 or so, who droned about in what seemed to be

and Princeton. One had driven

the

year-long football season. Snodgrass was one of this pride of painters, writers, actors, musi­ cians, sculptors, and critics that gave the univer­ sity what class it had. The more orthodox, timid graduate student, like myself, was generally too swamped during the day with the traditional de­

truck.

mands of advanced work to

Just

But outside of class

our

see

much of them.

lives were often joyously

the same.

Marshall Field

his triumph came when his first volume of poems was

reviewed

as

the work of

a

most

disciplined

artist. Two more were millionaires' sons, or acted

if they were. Many had elaborate marital lives.

as

as

many had been shot at in the

war.

Snod­

'grass suffered through a divorce.

usually spotted him as he climbed the Flop play chess with a friend of ours named Ace Levang, or when he was heading through campus for the writers workshop. This complex of versifiers and writers that he mixed with could, on occasion, be an especially arrogant, slow-smiling lot of empire builders. They had long before canonized the metaphysicals and I

We lived in

a

pleasant half-world of hockshops,

all night restaurants, Quonset huts or breezy room­

ing houses variously called The Empty Arms, the Flop House, or Gus's. To augment the G.!. Bill or the money from an occasional stint of teaching, we used to wash dishes, dig ditches, feed the mice and dogs in University Hospital, or mop the floors,

Spring,

a

Another, a graduate of West Point, ate on 75 cents a day and drove an $8.00 car, for awhile;

1960

House stairs to

19

symbolists and were most solemn about sanctity of Flaubert, Stendhal, and James.

French the

The

Authorized

Version

was

the Logos

Seven

Empson's

to be found

Types of Ambiguity, in the Kenyon Review, usually in the pronounce­ ments of Tate ("Allen") or R. P. Warren ("Red").

AU the King's Men enjoyed an enormous vogue; was

and then it was that F. R. Leavis was known for wit.

For

writers

the

as

such

enterprising,

more

Robert Lowell offered the

visiting

more

exotic

fare of Catullus, Villon, St. John of the Cross, Rilke, Kafka, and Lorca. There was also a bit

log-rolling. When the Western 'Review, Iowa's

of

little mag, wasn't pontificating about teachers-as­

writers-as-teachers (I can't remember which), like Addison and his little Senate it sat attentive to its own applause and pushed the local writers

or

boys rather heavily. Then too, there breathless

moment

when

Iowa

fell

came

that

heir to

the

Henry Awards, the annual selection of prize

O.

stories.

It

announced

was

in

the

next

volume

that eight of the best twenty-three short stories for 1954 had been done by Iowa writers.

There

were

bound to be casualties in such

a

edits the fiction of

a

system. One graduate slick

in

magazine

now

New

York

and

City

affects

gym shoes in the winter. Another in

Chicago has taken to correcting the unsophisticated notions of "beat" writers.

young

and wrote

al have

a

One married

a

swimmer

novel about girls' dormitories. Sever­

made

$100,000

into

inroads

Hollywood.

Another at Bard drapes himself in open shirts and suntans and fondles his Phi Beta Kappa key

II the nineteen

dot

landmarks

These

individual

complement the "Heart's Needle" cycle in Snodgrass' volume. These nineteen are arranged in chronology of subject but may be more handily viewed according to their easily demarked themes: memories of Navy service and home town; an early disintegrating mar­ poems

that

riage; new love and second marriage; and then, finally, the poet's successful assertion of integ­

stately indifferent groves of aca­ very triumphantly, filled memories of his child riding on his shoul­

rity amid deme. with

the

Very daringly,

he

ders,

last

at

can

intoxication

final

the

"These Trees Stand If all this world

.

runs

aloud

chant

refrain .

from

in

self­

the

poem

.": battletl.eld

or

worse,

Come, let us wipe our glasses on our shirts: Snodgrass is walking through the universe.

The

early record of war return, home town, marriage is obviously painful.

Throughout such poems as "Returned to Frisco, OU TIS," "Home Town," 1946," "MHTIS "Orpheus," and "The Marsh" runs the theme of and

broken

.

.

alienation America

in

the

in

.

No

Man's

land

of

postwar

increasingly chilly marriage.

If not his most successful poems, they nonethe­ less demonstrate Snodgrass' assimilation of what he has called the "symbolist-metaphysical" tra­ dition taught at Iowa and his subsequent pushing on to a more relaxed, laconic idiom of his own.

Take, for instance, "Returned to Frisco, 1946." or

an

homecoming accorded returned

conspicuously in public. One is a JP in Greenwich.

It celebrates the

A number have sold out to San Francisco and are

U.S.

director holed up in the State College there. A got himself into Life by memorializing the Iowa

grand view is that of the unholy garbage peddled by hucksters of the old lies, a people for whom sailors are amorous, steak­ eating "pigs along the rail." This charming vista of rewon freedom and choice, illusory as ever,

war

dead

and

thereby added

a

new

modem warfare. But Snodgrass .and

a

terror

to

few others

survived. They have written what appear to be a number of excellent poems. In doing so they

think, all the superficial irrita­ Snodgrass evokes the dark straggling parks, the tinny Quonset huts, the stinking marshes, spring roads or drifting midnight snow, the July 4th tornado of 1953, the humming hospital corridors, and the God-awful neglected specimens in the school museum, he not only conjures up the buried life we loved­ have

justified,

I

tions I've listed. For when

what other word

can

I use?-but he also blesses

elegance and authority. Thus to and development of his poetry is also to accept much of the folly and pretention of those days as finally accidental, ultimately irrelevant to that golden buckle on the Corn it with

Belt

20

a

the

trace

.

.

.

rare

order

that Athens.

sion.

seamen

some

time after the war's

conclu­

Their

is focused in the final ironic image:

disce:n

Off the port side, through haze, we could Alcatraz, lavender with flowers. Barred, The Golden Gate, fading away astern, Stood like the closed gate of your own backyard.

"MHTIS

...

OU TIS" takes the central pun of

the Odyssey, IX, for its pivot and then casts up what will become a familrar paraclete, the psy­

chiatrist, in the poet's verse. This man, R. M. Powell, whom Snodgrass never saw in a new experimental psychotherapy, is eulogized in the sestet of the sonnet as the "dead blind guide" who led him to drop his disguise as No Man and name his name. Perhaps the subject is a fairly standard one-the torment of a regimented life dedicated to killing; defiant repudiation; the

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

disguises of adequacy cast aside for the nainful acceptance of self. Still, the poem is notable. For all its tangled obscurity and somewhat highfal­ utin allusion, it specifies Snodgrass' unaltered trust

in the defiant mind and his

solve

to

his

name

name.

own

gathering

which is to say the worst swamp possible, writ­ ing the poem while proctoring a test for a

colleague (exams can be worthwhile), Snodgrass quietly

re­

turns much the

same divided light on the poet's origins. Written late in 1956, the poem allows Snodgrass, against his will, to turn his back on the ancient challenges of small-town America: the glittering dare of sex pursuit and the swag­ gering approval of boys of all ages. These lures are dressed out in verses picturing the endless night prowl of sheathed adolescents, whom we no longer hang but keep in school, through the perpetual carnival of their days. Returned after

Over

for

desire

illusions.

these

Hence

he

marriage:

by the gray rocks dip and circle.

muskrats

Out of his rim of ooze a silt-black pond snail walks inverted on the surface toward what food he may choose.

You look up; while you walk the sun bobs and is snarled in the enclosing weir

fifteen years, the poet has not stilled his fear nor his

the bog of his

Swampstrife and spatterdock lull in the heavy waters; some thirty little frogs spring with each step you walk; a fish's belly glitters tangled near rotting logs.

Town"

"Home

surveys

asks

of trees, in their dead stalks.

himself:

This

of

dead

limbs,

ensnared

sunlight,

and faded yellow lilies in the mud is indeed a world of "swampstrife," where a suspiciously

learned who does not need you; learned you are no one here?

tain

The

same

This time it touches

even

and

fication

for

marriage. The one myth, a ready identi­ and poet. It also clearly

husband

identifies the underworld of his marital difficul­

imago of our largely uninhabitable twentieth-century cities. The ashes of civic spirit, war rubble, gangland, poverty, municipal brib­ ery, all these unacknow ledged pledges of the cash nexus that we sUe1titute for humanity, be­ ties with the

come

the homesite for her who cannot love. The

hope

is

that

man

who do not trust return to

and

or

wife

who

know each

do

other,

not

love,

may

yet

light otherwise. So the modern Orpheus

begs the dark powers for the return of his bride the

radical

fleshliness

from

which

she

has

fallen, as did Eve, turned into stone: sing, as the blind beggars sing, To ask of you this little time -All lives foreclose in their due day­ That flowered bride cut down in Spring,

"I

Struck

by the snake,

your

underling."

He, despite his resolve, doubts.

He turns; she is gone. Fear again has forced the question, which questioned the will. "The Marsh" But she

wavers.

tries

to answer it. And this implied answer is unapologetically pulsing, forthright like the heart or like the poet's later cardinal spokesman or like the bright splash of red that adorns the covers of his volume. Lingering near what was in real life a swamp on the road to Cedar Rapids,

Spring,

1960

In

this

proceed unnaturally mess,

the

question

to

sus­

forces

Stick in the mud, old heart, what are you doing here?

closer

the Orpheus

employs

himself.

itself upon the poet in the last two lines:

It touches his first

to home.

poem

bardlike snail must

question is posed in "Orpheus"

"The Marsh."

in

world

Pale soul, consumed by fear of the living world you haunt, have you learned what habits lead you to hunt what you don't want;

and is answered in the asking.

If this bitter theme of the tormented will

was

usually so neatly taken by the throat as in "The Marsh," the subsequent love poems to his second wife, Janice, leave no doubt of Snodgrass' growing joy. Orpheus becomes Papageno of The Magic Flute; pride overtakes rejection; while in a poem like "Song," the self-righteous proprie­ ties of an enforced union yield to a much more splendid bed-rattling matrimony. The amorous landscape of toadstools and clipped lawns is re­ placed by that of root, tree, and soil. Powerfully domestic and erotic, these love poems are prob­ ably best represented by the stanzas of "Winter Bouquet" that celebrate a reunion with Janice.

I am probably over impressed with this sublime and cockeyed mixture of fragile stems, parched seeds, squealing brats, aerial sensuality, and wintry sunshine, but I really don't care. Here are not

the first and last of its three stanzas: Her hands established, last time she left my room, this dark arrangement for a winter bouquet: collected bittersweet, brittle stemmed Scotch broom, perennial straw-flowers, grasses gone to seed, lastly, the dry vaginal pods of mildweed.

These relics stay here for her when she's away.

Now she's home. Today I lifted them, like charms in the March sunshine to part the pods and blow white bursts of quilly weedseed for the wide arms

21

and eyes of the children squealing where they drift across the neighbors' cropped lawns like an airlift of satyrs

or

conservative,

a

snow.

warm

love into delights for children on more constrained

beds of grass-is part of a human recovery also established in "The Operation." In the first stan­ of that poem, Snodgrass doubtless stays too close to the standard version of the hospital. He

zas

also tends to overwrite, perhaps in an effort to counter the obvious. Thus the props of masked

attendants, staring crowd of bedraggled patients, self-identification

schoolgirl

her

at

with

first

forlorn

Pierrot

and

sacrament

overplay

the

theme of guilt purified through sacrifice. Snod­ grass himself admits to having been deep in

psychosomatic literature at the time. His second wife was also supporting him. And the screaming child in the background of the second stanza is at once too pat and, perhaps, even too obviously personal. Yet to say this is only to admit the success of th«; concluding stanza: Into flowers, into women, I have awakened.

Too weak to think of strength, I have thought all

day, Or dozed among standing friends. I lie in night, now, A small mound under linen like the drifted snow.

Only by nurses visited, in radiance, saying, Rest.

ranked office

Opposite,

windows glare;

headlamps,

below, Trace out

our

highways; their

cargoes under dark

tarpaulins, Trucks climb, thundering, and sirens may Wail for the fugitive. It is very still. In my brandy bowl Of sweet peas at the window, the crystal world Is inverted, slow and gay.

His

into

recovery

"radiance,"

the

flowered brandy bowl,

a

gift from Jan, glare

is also transformed and purified. Geometric

charted

ways,

other

wraps,

even

those

also

caught

in this makeshift

and

all

have their

rush

dark

burdens

under

pursued by guilt, vase

of flowers.

and bitterness

are

There

broken,

"in­

verted, slow and gay," into stillness.

After such wholeness, Snodgrass' resulting po­ For all I know,

etic stand is something to behold. it marks

a

new

series of attitudes in American

poetry. For example, it can establish the new poet, the university poet, only to recall us to an ancient ideal of education that has

appeared.

all but dis­

It also condemns our bustling,

civilization

moneyed only to expose it as less vigorous and

alive than the poet. And it mocks the received belief in America's world superiority only to show

22

us

to be

a

Leaving Iowa and its creative life, where poetry might be regarded as

a

a

as

living craft rather than

where you might

dead

subject, friends, Snodgrass

found

learn

even

Cornell

dull. among There is no other word, at least not for a poet, to describe

a

world

where

little

if

any

creative

work is done. "The Campus on the Hill" derives trom his life in Ithaca. Recalling Karl Shapiro's earlier

"University,". Snodgrass' poem is never­

sharply different. Shapiro scored the University of Virginia for its treachery to Jef­ ferson's ideal. With an eye on Ezra Cornell, who was a Quaker, Snodgrass scores "the children of theless

the

nouveaux

of

their

ricnes" for the

souls.

In

neglected tendance

condemning them, he really

condemns the dominant America of the that

'fifties

irresponsible

great static, monolithic, suburb perched variously and imperturbably near one

York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Angeles-everywhere:

Los

New

Tomorrow has broken out today: Riot in Algeria, in Cyprus, in Alabama; Aged wrong, the empires are declining, And China gathers, soundlessly, like evidence.

I say to the young on such a morning?­ Mmd IS the one salvation?-also grammar?No; my little ones lean not toward revolt. They Are the Whites, the vaguely furiously driven who

in.

W�at �hall

'

resist Their souls with such passivity As would make Quakers swear. All day, dear Lord, all day They wear their godhead lightly.

Snod­

recalling

grass' other paeans to human sunshine, also re­ concentrated covers the world. And that world, in

deny our souls and content ourselves looking down. I think specifically of the "April Inventory," and poems "A Cardinal, "The Campus on the Hill."

with

"

The authority of these "relics"-surrounding a Snodgrass gone to seed, then transformed by,

and

starts who

world minority of frightened up-

"April Inventory"

is

even

more

outrageous. Be­

meditating the monstrous examination in literary history for the Ph.D. in English at Iowa. There were also trips to the uni­ versity dental clinic; Mahler's "Lob des Hohen Verstands," taught to one Rachel Chester a most promising young painter; lessons in moth lore and affection for Jan's daughter by an earlier marriage; and then a dying old man, Fritz J arck, whom Snodgrass tended in the hospital. From this unpromising assortment emerged a poem hind it lies

a

year of

that brazens forth a song of sweetness and humil­

ity in education that sets it once again aglimmer­ ing in the world that sounds and shines. Here is the whole thing: The green catalpa tree has turned All white; the cherry blooms once more.

In one whole year I haven't learned A blessed thing they pay you for.

The blossoms snow down in my hair; The trees and I will soon be bare. .

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QU ARTERL Y

The trees have more than I to spare.

The sleek, expensive girls I teach, Younger and pinker every year,

that lies beneath the slogans and rhythms he has just escaped. But then he sees deeper. In doing

Bloom gradually out of reach.

The pear tree lets its petals drop Like dandruff on a tabletop.

ments of his

he shoots

so

with

claim

The

cardinal, after

shrill

And

eloquence.

so

must

all

singing creatures, saith the poet: Selfish, unorthodox, they live upon our leavings.

Boys or cats or hawks

thirty years I may not get Younger, shrewder. or out of debt.

In

can

The tenth time, just a year ago, I made myself a little list

.

scare

Still, long they

Of all the things I'd ought to know, Then told my parents, analyst, And everyone who's trusted me I'd be substantial, presently.

are

them out of song. as they are Ii ving,

not still for

long.

Each year the city leaves less of trees or meadows; they nest in our very eaves and say what they have to say.

Assertion is their credo; style tells their policy.

I haven't read one book about

memorized one plot. mind I did not doubt.

I learned one date. And then forgot.

And one by one the solid scholars Get the degrees, the jobs, the dollars. or

Or found

earlier poems.

all, has a tough, tenacious grip on life, sings his

The girls have grown so young by now I have to nudge myself to stare.

This year they smile and mind me how My teeth are falling with my hair.

A book

beyond the occasionally easy indict­

a

III

And smile above their starchy collars.

I taught my classes Whitehead's notions; One lovely girl, a song of Mahler's.

Lacking a source-book or promotions, I showed one child the colors of A luna moth and how to love.

I

Before turning to the "Heart's Needle" cycle, probably ought to say something about Snod­

grass' technique. The themes and development I have just loosely sketched, with their casual in­ sistence that the university be considered part

I

of the

I have not learned

that of most modern poets. He can load his poems with the best of them. His verses abound with the

larger world, are gripped by a technical mastery rare even among academic poets. To be sure, Snodgrass has gone to school with Auden, Robert Lowell, and Marianne Moore. His wit is

taught myself to name my name, To bark back, loosen love and crying; To ease my woman so she came, To ease an old man who was dying.

I have not learned how often I Can win, can love, but choose to die. there is

a

lie

Love shall be

metaphoric crockery of mid-century life, real­ istic diction, symbolic landscapes, double-dealing language, outrageous puns, partial rhymes, stretches of dead-pan prose, syllabic metres, sudden line breaks, accent groupings, and a most polished surface. But he has not stopped there, as have so many of his workshop compatriots. He has assimilated his influences; these devices are not ends in themselves. He doesn't play solemn games with words, and hence with life. Nor is his facility that of the schoolboy at his exercises.

You don't find Snodgrass hymning a dull Georgia boyhood or a weekend in Des Moines in the bor­

blonder, slimmer, younger; That my equivocating eye Loves only by my body's hunger;

That I have

forces, true to feel,

Or that the lovely world is real.

While scholars

speak authority

their ulcers

And

wear

My

eyes in

on their sleeves, spectacles shall see These trees procure and spend their leaves.

There is The

a

value underneath

gold and silver in my teeth.

Though trees

turn bare and

girls turn wives, costly seasons; There is a gentleness survives That will outspeak and has its reasons.

There is a loveliness exists, Preserves us, not for specialists.

We shall afford

But it is

a

our

cardinal,

in the poem of the

rowed the same

dian

cadences of Yeats's

variegated language as

the

Letter C."

"The Tower"

or

in

of Stevens'

"The Come­

He knows

better.

It

is

name, that makes the poet's credo explicit. Flee­ ing the unnatural rhythms of marching air

true that he owes most of what he knows

cadets, superturnpikes, soaring golf balls, and air­ plane engines-all the cadences of so-called free enterprise, that ring any campus-the poet finds himself alone at last, free to tinker with his own rhythms. He spies a cardinal and first identifies the bird with "the ancient pulse of violence"

the danger of turning that learning into dogma.

In his current effort to write poetry in the larger

Spring,

1960

poetry

to

his Iowa training;

he

also

about

recognizes

Hardy, and Chaucer, he beyond his Iowa mentors, especially after working with Randall Jarrell at Colorado.

Consequently, you can find in his work the un-

tradition of Wordsworth, has

gone

23

abashed presence of Midwest farmland, the de­ ceptively simple rhythms and statements of nurs­

his daughter. The landscape is that of his separa­ tion-cold, dark, closed. The theme is estrange­

rhymes, along with many an unblushing use of such words as "loveliness" and "gentleness."

the child seems oblivious to their strife. The tone

ery

This

combination

of hard

indirection

and

sim­

plicity gives a tone of dreamy precision to his work, especially in his momentary human scenes, like snowdrops in water, that are so full of im­ plications. The last stanza in "At the Park Dance," for instance, offers

metallic image of the solar system, borrowed from his little girl's game of jacks, and brushes it against the mo­ a

mentary touch of a child's finger: Beyond, jagged stars glinting like jacks hurled farther than eyes can gather; on the dancefloor, girls are

it is, a dance of stars and girls, infinite and finite, cold and tender, vague and permanent. poem

of the

"Heart's Needle" series: Winter again and it is snowing; Although you are still three, You are already growing Strange to me.

long since; swarms

Hoose

of Life; we certainly are equally Victorian platitudes of Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House.

The theme of divorce is, if anything, modern. The pain it creates is ancient: the title is taken from the phrase "an only daughter is the needle of the an

old Irish story. And for the future,

His

and

poems the

now

familiar im­

mals, dead and alive, help us keep our bearings.

born during the Korean War, is also the child of It is winter.

A child

is now three. She goes about her business talking, singing. Her father recalls walks that he has

taken, other snows, and songs that she has for­ gotten or never knew. He also muses on her strangeness and the fact that the snow outside obliterated his footsteps. Though the metre it is also varied; while the

his winter, his own marital cold war. Thus he may see into his child's mind with the eyes of a

"chilled

tenant-farmer"

gazing

on

his

fields

covered with unmarked snow: Here lies my land Unmarked by agony, the lean foot Of the weasel tracking. the thick trapper's boot; And I have planned .

.

.

primarily iambic,

lines may

into each

other, or run over from stanza to stanza. each stanza moves quietly to its focus on the speaker, the poet. For it is

24

Looking back­

Iowa.

The first poem starts much as did the fifth al­ ready mentioned. Cynthia, the poet's daughter,

Conceded to the jaw toothed, blue steel.

has

The

Throughout these

Of

is

at

ages of No Man's land, a city park, the rolling countryside, and a long parade of grotesque ani­

Where he backtracks and sees the paw, Gnawed off. he cannot feel;

outright.

poems that show "Heart's Needle"

not.

blank field,

Not much is said

The

daughter is partly himself. She is his his solace. Apart from her he is his art yet lost, may be quickened. The honesty, delicacy, and understatement that Snodgrass em­ ploys to construct this dilemma are masterful.

He could so easily have fallen into the pitfalls of sensationalism or sentimentality. But he does

And swirls out by warehouses, sealed.

Dark cowbarns, huddled. still.

Beyond to the The fox's hill

written

were

Rossetti's

torment

mind the squalls and storms snow

best.

not reminded of the

self.

Outside, the thick Into my prints

a

Snodgrass pieces, ten in number, one for each season in a period of two and a half years, begin with the winter of 1952 and end with spring, 195�. All but at

The artist is now estranged where once the world

Or when I sang for bedtime, Fox Went out on a chilly night, Before I went for walks And did not write;

renewed

cycle of

of his

one

had no power. Nor can he further disengage him­

Or where I go

are

is

the myth of the artist, the great subject of mod­ ern literature, is made even more harrowing.

new playmates, sing Strange songs; you do not know Hey ding-a-ding-a-ding

never

This

heart" in

You chatter about

You

He has also paused to note his loss.

may be reminded of such painful Vic­ ward, torian revelations as Meredith's Modern Love or

so

That

storm; and like the fox he has left part of him-· self-his daughter-to the trap he has evaded.

we

turn, vague as milkweed floats

My second example is the fifth

storming parents, though

is wry. Like the fox in the song she has forgotten, he too has gone out on many a chilly night; like the fox he also sees his impression vanish in the

the ninth

bobbing from childish fingers.

And

ment in this winter of

run

My chances to restrain The torments of demented summer or Increase the deepening harvest here before It snows

again.

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

The second poem

that

"demented to

hoped

moves

through spring towards which

summer"

restrain after the

tilities. In three sestets

we

the

stealthy

are

poet

had

winter nos­

asked to consider

three-year-old's garden and, indirectly, the girl herself, sprout of another garden bed: a

Someone will have to weed and spread The young sprouts. Sprinkle them in the hour When shadow falls across their bed.

You should try to look at them every day Because when they come to full flower I will be away.

The fatal opens

who

are

move

summer

with

a

child

and

step-daughter, the poet correcting his child, first wife, she and the poet caught in the old rancor. The final poem, however, dis­ covers father and daughter once again in the park up to their old tricks: roasting hotdogs on old hangers, paying their respects to the animals now beginning their spring rites. Remarried, the poet has survived and suffered, and spring has come again, and so his life must go, the cycle the envious

conclude and renew: If I loved you, they said, I'd leave and find my own affairs.

arrives in the third poem. It swung between its parents,

momentarily pulled together and

Well,

to Korean War

are

prisoners returned after

a

again this April,

around

the

to

we've

bears;

then

punished and cared for, behind bars,

apart. The tug of the poem is the pull on

the child. Her parents, now separated,

once

come

the

on bread and water black fingers after ours.

And you are still my daughter.

likened

coons

stretch thin

settle­

ment: If nothing more, it is the conclusiveness of Snod­ And

nobody seems very pleased.

It's best. Still, what must not be seized Clenches the empty fist.

I tugged your hand, once, when I hated

grass' last lines that is so arresting. But perhaps is enough of crude description. The poet's own words may best explain this new excellence.

this

These form

Thinas less: a mere game dislocated The radius of your wrist.

towards

With fall present, Snodgrass and daughter take a walk in the fourth poem. They snip flowers in a

they may still bloom despite the hopes remain for his daughter's life in spite of the separation. These hopes also commingle with his fears for the halted scrawl of

those of

recent frost. His

own unfinished verses brought home to him by a glimpse of broken morning glories. The last stanza brings the seasonal coda for poet, father, and daughter. Keeping close to a basic syllabic pattern of 6,6,6,8,4 and a rhyme scheme of ababb,

like

the

rest,

allows

the

on

last two

the flattened

Night comes and the stiff dew.

I'm told

a

remaining five

Spring,

1960

who have gone

so

far in criticism and

poems

are

Anything I might add to this would be an anti­ am left with the question

climax. So here it is. I

of who in Iowa will read these poems aside from

just

as

wryly

respected chambers of horrors, also the panorama of Snodgrass' domestic life. In the first, the poet whiles away the time in the third­ floor museum of the old library. There, stuffed and resigned, his blessings confront him: two snarling bobcats, a bison confronting its calf, a lioness protecting her cub, two elk locked in mutual hate. Or, respectively, spatting daughter most

us

will be less than alive. So will his words.

involved in grief and the seasons' flow. The last two in particular take us through two of Iowa

City's

essay

friend's child cried

because a cricket, who had minstreled every night outside her window, died.

The

recent

Needle, 6" in

analysis that we cannot ever turn back and be inno­ cent again, who have such extensive resources for disguising ourselves from ourselves-that our only hope as artists is to continually ask ourselves, "Am I writing what I really think'? Not what is accept­ able; not what my favorite intellectual would think in this situation; not what I wish I felt. Only what I cannot help thinking." For I believe that the only reality which a man can ever surely know is that self he cannot help being, though he will only know that self through its interactions with the world around it. If he pretties it up, if he changes its meaning, if he gives it the voice of any borrowed authority, if in short he rejects this reality, his mind

his

stanza,

his

of

explanation of "Heart's

I am left, then, with a very old-fashioned measure of a poem's worth-the depth of its sincerity. And it seems to me that the poets of our generation­

late buds that

lines to put enormous pressure suggestion of the first three:

conclusion

the

the Partisan Review, spring 1959:

municipal park, blow dandelions, and pocket

this

an

the

teachers

others

and

poets? Frankly,

there

would,

and

I

elsewhere.

wish many Take the

typical cooed from Coon Rapids, who buys her pencils along with her massive social study texts in Gordon's Book Store; in

who

will be off next fall to

a

Des

Moines

who modeled last

mer

department store; New

sum­

and

York to

live

with three other co-eds from South Dakota

and

maybe wind up married in Scarsdale-she probably ought to read the book.

So should some of the bright graduate students Illinois,

and

then

25

in

hydraulic engineering from Arabia. The same

goes

for

sistent

the

farms

boys or

from

from

those

those

unin­

massive,

hamlets

that

tick

and

off the years by decades and have pre-war Rotary

so

magazines in the dentist's office. Then I suppose

can

I

also worry about all these people partly be­ I still miss Iowa City and so often wonder

cause

how

it's

changed.

Does

highway,

Clabber

Girl

fields into

a

the

sun

still

boil

and

the

sign, dusty green pollen-thick blue haze? Do the sleety April rains still turn the new housing projects into mud flats stared at by the nervous wife and kids of some new J .C. Penney junior execu­ tive just in from Missouri or Nebraska, or by some new university professor, his class pencil still in his hand? Are the parks just as tangled

unkempt,

the

drinking

fountains

just

as

cracked? Do the poets still read their verses in the hall off the Amvet bar? Are the streets still

empty and solemn after midnight that you hear a drunk shout from a speeding car from at least two blocks away? And how, by the

way, is my old record at the Household Finance

office? Have the Quonset huts fallen in? Do old men still sit on the hood of the first parked Ford available

along

Dubuque

Street

on

Saturday

mornings? Has the usual spring murder got itself committed yet? I wonder, but I am also some­ what

consoled

now.

For

Snodgrass'

Heart's

Needle, apart from its excellence and extraordi­ nary literary promise, has brought all that old foolish life back to me.

Mr.

Snodgrass kindly sent me the following poem to print with my essay. omitted from the American edition of Heart's Needle, but will prob­ be included in the forthcoming English edition. It was printed by the ably Transatlantic Review, and is here reprinted by permission.

Janice, the poet's wife, was born on a Fourth of July. Her name is pro­ nounced to rhyme with peace. The bridge of the poem is the Crandic Bridge on the road to Cedar Rapids It

was

Letter In

our

bare feet

we

crossed the

sopping lawn

And touched huge maples splintered in the storm Of Independence Night, which is your birthday.

Tonight I write where we first woke together; I sat today in grass where we had gone.

Those ragged stubs where branches wrenched away Are old scars darkening with the Autumn weather.

Beneath, the locust husks are golden, warm.

The little

trolley bridge we tarried on

And spit, or tried to, on the shining cars Beneath our feet today I say, Janice, -

This traffic

its

evening way. By wars And wars world is growing toward its peace; The mind heavy with praise, though you are gone. on

our

26

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QU ARTERLY

Christian Dennis Wunsch Christian Dennis Wunsch lives in La Junta, Colorado, where he was born and went to school. At Northwestern he is

a senior in the College of Liberal Arts, majoring in English and at the same time meeting pre-medical requirements.

He is a member of Beta Theta Pi, and Northwestern Wrestling Team. In 1959 he received the Edwin L. Shuman Award for excellence in writing.

The line drawing is by Marilynn Lucille Smith, graduate of the Art Institute, and an artist for Time magazine.

THE END OF THE RAINBOW I WENT DOWN TO THE BEACH TODAY and

and I guess it's pretty hard to have a good friend­

be

ship with your father when you're still pretty young. Probably the most I ever saw of my dad, I mean really saw, because before I never noticed much, was when we went on this fishing trip. I guess I was about ten then, and it was my first fishing trip. Oh, I went on fishing trips before but my folks would leave me with his parents in a little town where they lived and then go on to fish about fifty miles away. It sure was boring there but every year on the weekend my grandparents would take me down to the place where my folks were fishing. That wasn't any fun either because

like that, but it's not that way. I get to thinking that guys today aren't as big as they used to be

they said I wasn't old enough to fish and that I'd probably drown in the river if I went fishing. But in

high school, that the football players were bigger and rougher, but when I mention it to someone they say to compare football programs

that year when I

of the past years and

see if the guys in our class size. Maybe so, and maybe time changes people fast enough so that our class isn't

fish.

the way the seniors used to be.

When he'd go hunting in the fall for pheasants, and ducks, and geese, or whenever we slaughtered

you know what I saw? I

and their little

saw

this guy and his

I watched them

girl play

baby boy. boy and I wondered if I would ever be a father. Right then it really seemed re­ mote to me, getting married, sitting on the beach with your kid and all. But I suppose that someday

with their little

I'll get married and have a son, and it won't seem

remote, and probably not at all like I think it

so

Like being a senior in high school, prob­ ably that's what it'll be like. I'm one now. I re­ member when I used to look at those big guys in

is

now.

the senior class

and think that

someday I'd

in

aren't the

same

Well, this is all

kinda round about from talking about marriage, but I just know that when I get married it won't

be

all the

at

have

a

son

way

it

looks

now.

Someday I'll

but I won't have the father-son rela­

was about ten, Dad said that I enough to fish and ought to learn how.

He thought that every boy ought to learn how to

was

old

I never could see why fishing was

so

important

to him, but I'll tell you how much he liked to fish.

chickens-I

forgot

to

mention,

we

lived

on

a

farm-no matter what bird my dad killed, you know what he'd do? He'd cut out a patch of hide

tionship that I think that guy and his baby son are having. I guess it is possible that a father's

and feathers off their neck and pull some feathers

relation with his

the neck hackles to make wet flies and the wing hackles to make the dry ones. He wasn't very

just looks different to the but in reality it will be the same. son

young guys Maybe I'll be the same kind of �ather as mine was.

out of their wings and save them for flies. He used

orthodox about

using just

one

kind

or

the other

My dad and I didn't have too close of a relation

like most good fishermen are. He said he used the

because I was pretty young and all when he died,

kind that got the most fish. His fly-tying equip-

Spring,

1960

27

ment

very crude and it took him

was

to make

flies, but they

were

a long time really pretty when

strike, but none did. Boy, I was tense as hell and I cast again. I was watching my flies and all of the sudden I

he finished.

saw

a

fish start for

one.

It scared

me

and all turned brown after the

and I jerked the fly he was going for right out of his mouth, then stood there just tense as hell. I

first frost and then dried out, my father would go out and prune back the bamboo that grew along

kept telling myself to relax and be cool-headed.

I cast a couple more times and started to relax

Something else I remembered, when the weeds

the

the

of

side

house.

He

In the fall

too.

saved

of

the

fly rods

out

some

shafts of bamboo and made himself

when another fish came up and hit one of my flies. I froze this·time; I didn't even set the hook,

hung himself. He started out for the

of it. Boy, it would take him hours to work a shaft

but this

of it down, and sand

middle of the river tugging like mad and I just froze there. Some times my line went slack, other

put

the

on

it, and varnish it. Then he'd

guides that he had made

out of the

wire we used to tie up the seed sacks with. When he got through he had a beautiful eight and a half

foot, three-piece rod. He said that his rod only weighed about five ounces and that one like it would cost around eighty dollars in the store. Now you can tell how much he thought about fishing.

Well anyway,

we

went

fishing that year, and I

really excited about it all. We left at about five o'clock in the morning because Dad said he was

wanted to get in some fishing that day. The road was rutty and our old car didn't have any shock absorbers

it worth

on

a

damn

it

so

was

bouncy

all the way. When we got there, though, things started to go wrong. We went to unpack the trunk and there was this beer all

over

everything. Dad

loved beer and he brought this stuff with him,

cept it

was

worked

up

the bumpy

they

ex­

too green when he bottled

it, and it in the bottles going over

all the gas road. I guess when

one

When we finally got unpacked Dad fixed up one me how to cast, then took off up the river. We walked

long way

a

and finally found a place where we could get down river. The Rio Grande is

river,

the

brush

and

a

willows

hell of

a

are

thick

so

big

that you can't get down to it just whenever you want. On the way down to it Dad got the tip of

his rod caught in broke.

one

of the willows and the

Boy, I'll never forget that.

He

tip really got

mad because he knew he'd have to walk all the

get another one. I'll bet languages swearing before he

way back to the cabin to

he

wore

out

five

cooled off. He told me to fish where we were and wait till he

got back. He left and I waded into the

river very carefully. The river was a little wider and slower where I was so it wasn't too dangerous. little way and started to cast. On my first cast I didn't have out very much line be­ I waded out

cause

a

I couldn't handle very much yet,

and I cast

rather clumsily I guess. I watched the flies drift back towards me, and I was sure some fish would

28

taken about ten minutes to land him. That

was

battle, though. Every time I started to stick my hand in the net he'd start fighting again and twist the net up. It scared me, it really just half the

did. I was afraid to take ahold of him. Somehow I

The cold water was part of it, but even when I got

of his old rods and showed

and

ever going to get him, and reeling. My heart was pounding, and the fish was jumping and fighting, and that little fly rod was bent almost double. I wasn't very good at co-ordinating my rod and net, and the fish sure as hell wasn't co-operating. Every time I got the net close to him he'd take off and fight some more, but when he was finally so tired that he couldn't fight I got the net under him. It must have

I started

bottle left

a

Everything smelled like beer for a

to the

froze. I finally came around to thinking that I had to pull him in if I was

of them went

whole week.

we

times it got too taut. Instead of keeping steady pressure on it like a good fisherman would, I just

did, and I got the hook out and put him in my creel. By that time I was shaking like a leaf.

all went because there wasn't

in the bunch.

one

out I couldn't

stop shaking. I

sat

down

on

the

bank and kept trembling. Every now and then I felt the fish hopping in my creel and once I opened it up and looked at him. He was laying there mov­ ing his jaws like he was gasping for air and star­ ing at me. I wished that he had eyelids and would close them instead of staring at me, but he kept on

looking until I had to shut the lid on my creel. quit thinking about him, but he kept

I tried to

moving, and each time he didn't move as hard as the time before. I know it sounds childish now, but

got to thinking that maybe he had a family somewhere, that all of his friends wouldn't ever see him again, but what I really thought about was how hard he fought against me. You know how your parents were when you twisted the eat's tail? They asked you how you would like it if they I

twisted your tail. Well, this wasn't a situation of how-would-you-like-it, but a situation of what­

would-you-do. I mean if you saw something lying on

the sidewalk and you

this great big giant threw

picked a

it up, and then

rope around you and

drug you to his cave and started to kill you, what would you do? You'd probably say, "Why?

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

Why is this happening to me?", or "Please, giant, don't kill me!" or else you'd sit there in fright and go half-crazy, that's what you'd do. This fish didn't do that, though. He fought me, that's what he did. He didn't ask why, or plead with me, or shake from fright; he fought me. After I thought a while I started crying, and I took the fish out of my .creel and threw him back into the river. He didn't swim away. He laid on his side and I saw his big white belly, the broad rainbow

stripe

his side,

on

and .his

big open jaw as he prayed then, I prayed that he

floated away. I

he fished he

just put

cold it

You could still

was.

bet

I

no

ever

one

fished that

stopped crying.

long time and finally

a

of

thought

some

chickens I had

killed. I just picked them up by their legs, put them across the chopping block, and whack, off came

their heads. Once I killed

out with Dad. He handed me was

where to

the gun and showed

shoot her in the head.

dead and it didn't

couldn't get

me

sheep. I went

a

over

being

bother

even

Pow!

She

I

still

me.

shook about this fish.

so

Dad came back from the cabin about that time

and asked

if I had

me

luck. I told him I

any

caught one and threw him back. He asked me what the hell I did a foolish thing like that for and I couldn't answer him. I just couldn't say anything.

For some reason I just couldn't say why. I guess I must have started to cry again and Dad figured that he'd said something or another. He wasn't mad any

told

and he sat down beside

more

not to feel bad about

me

and

me

anything he'd said,

to cheer up because this was a trip to have fun on and all. He got up and said that he'd give me

fifty cents if I could catch my limit and that if he couldn't catch his he'd give me a dollar. Since he was old enough to have to buy a license he could catch ten fish, but kids were just allowed to catch five. He got up and left then. I'll never forget it.

There

was

this

river had been

side

of

the

mountain

that

the

was

to

climb

it.

Dad

He

saw

see

pullout two fish

him

at

one

to the

out

just go

me

how many you

can

catch." I

time.

Bracing

himself against the current, trying to keep his balance and catch those fish all at once was really

something. He caught stream

glimpse

a

after he'd landed them

of

me

down­

and held

up for me to see. I don't think I ever saw smile in my whole life.

a

them

bigger

He fished a bit longer, until he caught his limit, then

back down to meet me. We walked

came on

back to the cabin together and he told me about each fish, where he caught them and how. He cleaned his fish and brought them into the cabin. as hungry as a full grown Perch­

He said he was after

eron

a

long day's work and could eat twice

much. I think he almost did, too. Dad put on a great show whenever he ate the fish he caught. as

planned on eating fish

When he

wouldn't eat much the

meal

for

a

meal he

before

so

he'd be

hungry. He had to have his fish a certain way. He cleaned

them

but

wouldn't

Mom cut off the tails

or

them

scale

or

let

heads. "I want to know

eating fish," he'd say. Boy, the way he ate pick them up by the tail, strip the

I'm

them. He'd

meat off with his fork and tear the tail off when

he

was

through. Then he'd wolf down the meat,

all the little bones

tail.

still stuck in it and eat the

brought him

Mom

We fished for

cutting in to and the only way to

get farther up the river

spot before.

used to say, "It's not how good of a fisherman you are, it's all in being where the fish are, and if you don't believe

I

in the

upstream from willow to willow, hanging on for dear life with one hand and fishing with the other.

rainbarrel and

the bank for

snow

was

but he just kept floating on his side. on

the

see

swift and noisy where he was and he couldn't wade out more than waist deep and still stay on his feet. He'd move along mountains. The river

wasn't dead, that he'd come alive and swim away, I sat

old pair of boon­

this

on

dockers and waded, clothes and all, right out into the cold river water. You don't have any idea how

a

few

fish

seven

that

night.

days and it turned fisherman, but I had

more

out that I wasn't much of

a

climbed right up it and walked on up the river.

I tried to fish a little while longer, but I really

good time of it. I was sorry to go home when it finally came time to leave. All the way home

didn't feel like fishing,

Dad talked

up

the

river

a

ways

so

I figured that I'd go on watch Dad Well, I

and

..

a

about how it

fun, too, except that

my fool neck if I'd have tried it.

Dad. One

on

the bank again and started feeling lonely as hell. in the river and maybe

I decided to wade out I could

see

out far

enough to where I could

Dad fish up around the bend. I got see around the

willows

and watched him. He

really thing. He never wore waders or anything. When

Spring,

1960

was

some­

going

to

more

be next

me a

few

tricks and all. I'll bet it would have been

started to climb up over the rocks, but I couldn't pick out a path to get to the top. I'd have broken I sat down

was

year when we went, and how he'd show next

year

never

came

for

day our hired hand came running and

screaming into the house. Mom made

me

stay

did get the whole story from anyone until we were ready to sell the place and

inside and I leave.

Our

never

hired

hand

told

me

about

it.

Dad

prize boars in one of our pens and he wanted to clean out the slop trough. He told had these two

29

.

the hired hand to go fix one of the harnesses that broken. When the hired hand

time when I'll have

a

boy of my own. I'd like to

back he

take him fishing where Dad and I fished, but the

found Dad lying dead in the pen with the two boars tearing him apart with their long tusks. One

last I heard was that all of the willows and foliage

of the boars had

had died. There

was

a

came

big gash alongside his head

along the Rio Grande up there in the mountains was something about a foreign

where it looked like someone had kicked him and

type of cutworm that couldn't have got in there

the other had a couple of ribs caved in. The thing

unless

the hired hand couldn't figure out was why Dad didn't holler for help or anything because he was

in

right around the corner.

That seems a long way away now down here in Texas along the gulf where Mom's folks live and we stay. I guess it's about as far away as the

30

they were accidently or purposely carried by a truck. When the willows and all died, so

did the fish because there wasn't any insects or food left. I hear the only thing left in the river now

that

the

game

fish

are

dead

are

a

few

blockheaded, sluggish old suckers that live off the garbage and crap.

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

Richard John Smith Richard John Smith, a Chicagoan, is twenty-three years old and a senior at the Chicago campus of Northwestern, majoring in History. His special interest is South Africa, where he hopes eventually to make his home. He has traveled

Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, the Oceanic Isles, and in South Africa, which is the setting of the story below. in

THE VALLEY OF A THOUSAND HILLS THE CITY OF DURBAN in September of 1955 mountain tops and valleys.

Glass and concrete were rising in the city's cen­

was

sprawling

ter,

cranes

over

came

down

and

elevators

loaded

with steel, men, and mortar clanged up to the of big white mushrooms overlooking the

tops

"Oh, I'd feel so stupid," she said, gazing in the direction to which my raised glass pointed.

"You know Jack is expecting us."

"Well, I'll let you enjoy his South African hos­ pitality by yourself."

"I think you are being very unfair, Mary."

"If you

Indian Ocean that came in cold and distant.

sitting down next to Mary at one of the city's outdoor cafes. She was English, born in South Africa and living in Johannesburg-Jo'burg in the world as they called it-the largest city I

was

that

was

not located

near

some

She had come down to Durban I had met her here and she

on

body a

if

we

she ordered her

own

beer. I think that

even

had conversed it would have been difficult

because of the many cars rushing noisily down the Marine Parade and the many people around

and

loud-that

leave

waves

and

can

you

get

that

another

needed

we

Jewish

we finished it she was ready to go and moved through the crowd of tables. We flagged

After we a

cab glittering toward us in the hot sunlight. The

taxi skirted the blue Indian Ocean and brisk palm trees. We turned down the

horizon.

"Don't be difficult, Mary; place. It's way up on Berea."

white apartments and hotels.

South African like

"I

one

suppose at

around.

that he

has

to

you'll like Jack's have

least

at

one

his

party. Maybe you're the only What does he want just another me

for?"

"Because he knows that you and I

"I guess we'll have to go to that party now."

"Oh, I don't want to go," she said.

A Zulu pulling his rickshaw toward us was wearing a spangled headress-a hovering pile ef feathers, horns, beads, and shells. It was rather commercial looking. He was prancing barefoot and laughing at the traffic.

"How would you like a ride in that, Mary?"

Esplanade facing the

harbor. It was going to be a hot day. The sky was enormous and fiercely blue to the hill-topped

American

1960

for three weeks and go

through all the noise of people cars

us, loquacious wealthy Jo'burg crowd-always conscious of the vibrant social whirl. About thirty tables were facing the Indian Ocean; across the Parade was a row of

Spring,

me

Rhodesia

I shouted to her

and

green;

it had been lavender in the early morning. Stretch­ ing from it to us was the beach, narrow, and speckled with an orchard of umbrellas. Mary wasn't talking but when the Indian waiter came over

to

drink.

stayed on. was

can

by yourself, then along without me just fine."

"I go up there to keep my sanity."

"What am I, your insanity?"

of water.

holiday, and

I noticed that the bluff to the south

off

are

always

together."

"Well, that's more than I know."

I

put

my

head back

on

the

leather

seat

and

laughed loudly. We headed down Russell Street with its facade of new flats-rising in terrific clatter-overlooking Albert Park. The car began to

climb

up

Moore

Road

and

down

below

you

31

could

the white buildings in the

see

city

center

left, as we gazed down on the avenue, were houses perched above a slope.

along the beach. To

our

Steep walks led up to their doors, passing through brick

walls that bordered the

sidewalk.

In

the

backyard to the right were lemon trees and it jacaranda time in Durban. Thousands of trees were choked with blue and purple blos­ soms. Up ahead a big house with an imposing

was

trellis groaning with red roses. On the left again the steep yards above the brick wall

yard had

a

sometimes rock gardens ablaze with flowers

were

creeping

around the rocks. Children with

golden

and wearing blue uniforms walked across an intersection. It reeked up here

hair

the street at in Berea of

smelled like

overripe blossoms-a sugariness; it heaps of oranges in front of a gro­

The heat lifted the scent

cery.

crete Toad and then into the

The cab we

finally stopped.

I

over

to the

con­

car.

paid the

m.an

and

"Maybe."

"Look up Mae for me, will you?"

"Mae?"

"You'll know her; she lives in New York City and has black hair-let's see, what kind of a purse does she carry?"

New York-somehow there

ture,

came to me a pic­ city twinkling in the blue fog thousands

a

and thousands of miles away. America

was

like

that when you were far away from it. And you could see the whole map in your mind, and the

cities

on

it

were

flashing green lights; you could

have it all.

"Mae, yeah, she carries a brown purse."

Only a little sunlight came in from the large bay window crowded with onlookers. The great yellow petals of the bushes near the window were laughing at us. Somebody put a drink in my hand.

"Anybody in the back yard?" I said to Jack.

"Maybe. Want to go out?"

"Yes."

stepped out.

"Jack's house?" Mary asked. It was set up above

"Jack! Jack!" a big Australian holding a pitcher

colored bungalow, smothered by laughing bushes,

of iced gin and orange was shouting from across the room. "Lovely and cool, Jack. I'm enjoying

and stairs danced toward it. After we had walked

this, Jack." He drank out of the pitcher.

the sidewalk and

a

the

steep wall;

I

knocked

it

was

the

a

peach­

door.

I

Mary was sitting on the floor talking to Benny. through the dining room filled with card players dealing over tables. The small back

heard wild

steep steps, peals of laughter inside; then a win­ dow in the door opened and a Jewish face pre­

We walked

sented itself.

room was

up

on

"Yeah!"

"Hello, I'm Morris Rowe," I said.

"Hey, Jackbo," the face shouted, "it's Yankee Doodle Dandy! Come on in, man." The face be­ came a plump musician, whose one hand held a trumpet, the other an incredibly large glass.

He saw Mary behind me. "You from the States too?"

"Oh, no."

Jack

came

over

from

across

the

room

that

ster!

was

hot and clear and sunny. The

of the heart of Durban and the beach

doesn't carry one."

"Hey," he shouted, States someday?"

"you going back to the

a

area

were

gleaming white; the bay looked almost silver. We sat beneath a jacaranda tree, an enormous tree stuffed with blue and purple petals, stinking with

the

heat

of

blossoms.

had followed us out,

"Hello, Jack," she replied, smiling a little.

"Gangster, I want you to meet Benny Levine, the best trumpet player in Natal."

Benny nodded his flushed face and amost shouted, "Say, are you from New York City?"

"No, Chicago."

He pressed his fat fingers over my coat pocket, then turned to Jack and blubbered, "Man, he

made

pink hollyhocks lying near the path and house.

The whole city was below us. The white buildings

"

he said.

yard

little slope. The green grass came up to a bed of

chairs

"Hello, Jack." He looked like the Duke of Edinburgh, a younger version perhaps. "Mary!"

32

spirits. When

filled with

people sprawling over his large furniture and floors. "Hello, Morey-you gang­ was

empty except for cases of bottled beer we stepped out the door, it

and

placed under the tree

garden table were

a

The

wrought

and beside

a

iron white

welcome relief. Mary, who lost in a trance, gazing

was

at the

great, silent, unmoving conurbation below. in a white starched coat brought bottles and silver buckets of ice from the dining room.

He poured our drinks into sparkling glasses. We sat, we drank, and we talked, and An

Indian

Jack

sometimes

or

Benny would leave

for the

house and then return again. Each time the door

opened we shouting.

When

could

hear

the

loud

talking

and

began to fall, people would glasses in their hands and look down at the city and bay below, that were like come

the

out

dusk

with

sheets of black crepe paper. Some careless crea­ ture had thrown a trayful of diamonds off the

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

mountain and they had rolled down the

settled in the city; In

they

kind of haze

a

we

didn't

the

seu.

left the garden and the

dark sweetness of the air and wandered into the rooms

of the house that were swirling with voices,

noises and figures. rule

"Home

Britain!

Rhodesia

for

and

hell

to

with

"

"Shut up; you're British."

"I'm Rhodesian! God's own country."

"Rhodesia is the root of all evil; take it away, take it away, take it away."

"Bullshit!

the slave."

"I prefer slavery to a multi-racial hotel."

"Benny, man, play something cool and crazy."

"My son thinks that every statue in South Africa is of Cecil Rhodes."

-Grab your hat and grab your coat; leave your worries on the doorstep-'Don't hurt

"-and I told him, sure

you

do

come

back

my

from

daughter.

England.

This is serious and she is sensitive.' And

a

month

later I received this letter from his mother say­ ing 'Due to the racial policies of the South African

we

"What

don't

I

government, -and

think

my

son

should

"

will be-

has

my

daughter got

to

do with

this

pinch

the

country's racial policies?"

-as

rich

'never,

never

"

"I'm not

Why, these people don't even do their own shopping."

"My father sells machinery. Hell, I couldn't sell any machinery."

"I do my own shopping."

"No, you're wrong. Oppenheimer is all for the a

South African.

white man."

Some time later a silver

we

said

good-by. Benny was

trumpet and black outlines danced

blowing closely to "Rock Around the Clock." But we left that and stepped out the door, stumbling down the steps to a waiting cab.

Spring,

and on-that party. I pressed my forehead

on

the

lights of the city as we de­ scended lower and lower became larger. She was beside me always-weeping-drunk. Some party!

You can rise only within and not above those

windowpane;

the

people back there. You can't go native; they only try to do that in America or Europe, and down here a city is sacred.

1960

and I

was

we

below

half way up a mountain them; and I had begun to be were

afraid. They had gone away from the path and gone straight up through the forest. They had

grasped the little trees in the slanting forest. I them, my hands holding trembling sprouts. When the leaves above me moved, the sky was let in and the hot midday sun burned patches on my face. On the floor of the slanting mountain forest were dried leaves, and I stamped through them. I was burdened because I carried a bottle of beer in my pocket. Up on the top were

followed

a rock and you did not bring drink, but to replace. Then the ground became slippery, and I had to make it to that large rock lying settled in strange and lonely security. Grasp that tree there! Make it over to that slanting rock! Quick, hold onto it-tight!

Panting hot with life, I lay firmly atop my prom­ ontory. Above me in the forest, they were crunching leaves-climbing-waving black bottles.

cold bottles under

yours to

A

RockefeHer-

as

"-and I said to her,

monkeys.'

rolled back down the streets, every­

was

In Rhodesia

Tables and chairs gave way before the hurried scuffling. "I don't mind slavery as long as I'm not

associate-'

we

dizzy, and my mind became oppres­ sive with its throbbing omnipresence. Mary was beside me; that wasn't any good. It would go on thing

"

"Say, who invited you here anyway?"

Make

When

slope and

reach

weight released itself from

below

my

body and far

caustic sound of glass over rock.

Then the leaves of the forest gave way, the trees was

a

descending from slopes, and the burning plain Africa, the hottest yellow midday ever set aflame, spread to the blue hills of Mozambique.

of

No, there's nothing dark about this continent.

That's why you never leave, except to go back and forth between its cities and the bush. To and

fro, ascending and descending. There are places you escape to, and somehow you hope that beyond the suffocating love for your own race you may find the primitive, the pure, and the light, that is only breathed in that heaven you can never see.

33

Aesthetic shifts, decade to decade, take place in the liking for Shakespeare's plays. Measure for Measure, with its one-half of briUiance, and Troilus and Cressida, with its hard intellectuality and its modern disiHusionment, have recently "come up," especially among collegians. Even Timon of the long out­ of-fashion Timon of Athens has, for his wrath, his cult among the seminars and advanced-study groups. Perhaps of the once neglected plays, Coriolanus, most austere of the Roman tragedies, has risen highest. This year at Northwestern University alone it will be studied in three major classes and be read by over fifteen hundred students.

Responsible for this admiration is a kind of formal symmetry now discerned in Coriolanus an artistically exciting structure which, like a well conceived -

statue, can be examined from many sides.

The editor of THE TRI-QUARTERLY has invited seven men of considerably differ­ ing interests to examine some of the facets of the play and its subject matter.

Professor Carl A. Roebuck, Chairman of the Classics Department, leads off this brief symposium with a discussion of the historicity of the Coriolanus of fact or legend. Stuart G. P. Small, Associate Professor in the same department, continues with the Coriolanus of Plutarch's Lives, Shakespeare's source for the play. Lacy B. Smith, Associate Professor of History, considers the play in its relation to the Tudor concept of the state. Other political aspects of the situa­ tion which Shakespeare depicts are discussed by Professor Richard C. Snyder, Chairman of the Political Science Department. Professor Frank W. Fetter of the Economics Department, takes a not wholly satisfied look at the economic problem with which Shakespeare begins the play only to let it drop. Professor Robert I. Watson of the Psychology Department (and a member of the medical faculty) probes into both Coriolanus and Shakespeare through the fatal and pre­ Freudian mother-son relationship. Moody E. Prior, Professor of English and Dean of the Graduate School, closes the series with an analysis of Coriolanus as tragic hero.

CORIOLANUS: A SYMPOSIUM OF SEVEN Coriolanus: The StoryCarl A. Roebuck The deeds of Coriolanus Should not be uttered feebly. It is held That valor is the chiefest virtue, and Most dignifies the haver. If it be, The man I speak of cannot in the world Be

singly counterpoised.

T HE TRADITIONAL STORY of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, the arrogant and unyielding Roman

patrician, is

set in the

early

years

of the

fifth

century before Christ, shortly after the Roman nobility had expelled their Tarquin kings and es­ tablished

a

republican form

of government. Ac­ republic was beset

internally by a struggle between the governing of patrician landowners and the plebeian farmers and craftsmen. The plebeians devised an effective method of forcing concessions by calling a general walkout from the city, which impaired the ability of Rome to make war. Very soon they compelled the patricians to acquiesce in the crea­ tion of plebeian officials, the tribunes, whose func­ tion it was to protect the ordinary people from patrician oppression. Rome suffered, too, from the growing pains of an increasing population and an inadequate grain supply, for its limited ter­ ritory was under constant attack by the hill peo­ ple. In the wars against the Volscians Coriolanus won his military reputation and in the political class

economic

crisis

cording to tradition, the young

and

externally by attacks from the fierce hill tribes of central Italy, among them the Volscians, and

against the plebeians.

34

His story

was

a

of

the

state

set

himself

popular tale in Roman antiq-

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

uitv, told by several authors. Shakespeare used only Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, translated by Sir Thomas North, which is the most developed and dramatic. Livy, the historian of the Roman

Republic, wove some episodes into his account of early Rome (ii. 34-40), and a highly colored and rhetorical version was given by Dionysius of Hali­ carnassus in his Roman Antiquities (vi. 92-94; vii. 20-27; viii. 1-60). Just as Shakespeare varied his incident and emphasis from Plutarch, to serve his

dramatic purpose,

own

so

there

are

differ­

and left those of the patricians untouched. The plebeians, hoist by their own petard, prevailed on the patricians to

sue

for peace, and successive

delegations were sent to the Volscians. Coriolanus rejected the pleas both of his patrician friends and of the priests of Rome, and only yielded to the entreaties of his mother, Volumnia, who came as

a

last resort with the

women

of Rome. Plu­

tarch, followed by Shakespeare, tells the story of Coriolanus' death at the hands of conspirators, acting under Aufidius' direction, when he was

antiquity.

about to defend himself before the Volscians. Ac­

that the story of Coriolanus had been expanded and embellished as it was told and

cording to the earliest version of Coriolanus' end, however, he lived to a ripe, comfortable, and

retold from

most undramatic old age.

ences

among these accounts written in

We may

assume

the time

of its

about 500 B.C. until the

alleged occurrence composition of the ver­

Modern

sions we possess, five and six hundred years later.

story

Yet, in all the accounts the framework is essen­ tial1y similar, which may indicate that we do have an old legend reflecting the early struggles

its

of Rome,

even

if its details serve the ends of fic­

tion, not of history.

Gaius Marcius

was

born into

a

prominent pa­

as

scholarship has usually rejected the unhistorical, although a few argue that

outline may represent

actual occurrence-at

least, it could have happened. Aside from the variations of incident

and

detail

in

its

several

versions, which imply an uncertain tradition growing by embellishment and dramatic interest, there

are

historical anomalies which make it dif­

trician family and won his surname, Coriolanus, from his valor in the capture of the town, Corioli,

ficult to accept. The fulcrums on which the ac­ tion turns, the power of the tribunes and the dis­

from the Volscians led by Attius Tullus Aufidius.

The proper reward for such service to the state

tribution of

was

election to

sulate,

Rome's highest office,

but Coriolanus had

a

the

con­

reputation for harsh

obduracy against the plebeians as well as for his military exploits. According to Plutarch he was rejected by them at the election, which

in­

so

censed Coriolanus that he

bitterly opposed mak­ ing a distribution of grain to the people in time of famine and

even

went

so

far

as

to propose

us­

ing the famine as a lever to abolish the new office of the tribunate. All the ancient accounts make

his quarrel with the people turn directly on this point and not on the rejection for the consulate.

Shakespeare, of course, has emphasized the po­ litical, rather than the economic motivation and has also developed the role of Coriolanus' mother and that of Menenius, the patrician, as interces­ sors in the interest of Roman unity. When the tribunes wished to impeach Coriolanus for this hostility to the people, rather than for aiming at a tyranny, as in Shakespeare, he turned the oc­ casion into

a

fierce indictment of tribunes

and

people and was forced into exile. He took refuge with the Volscian leader, Aufidius, and with him devised a scheme to provoke an incident between Rome and the Volscians which would anger the

latter into making war on Rome. In the war Cor­ iolanus' scians

leadership and courage brought the Vol­ to

the

walls

of

Rome

where

they

pro­

ceeded to devastate the farms of the plebeians

Spring,

1960

grain, belong more properly to the period of the Gracchan revolution in the late sec­ ond century before Christ than to early Rome. At this time the history of early Rome was being written by a group of chroniclers called the Annalists, who provided the material used by Livy, Dionysius, and Plutarch. Since the Annalists found little but dry annual records of magistrates and the like with which to work, they motivated events by the concerns of their own period and embellished them by detail drawn from biogra­ phies of famous Greeks. For example, the story of Coriolanus' refuge with Aufidius is modelled in detail on that of Themistocles of Athens, who fled to a king of the Molossians. Other anoma­ lies, too, are disturbing, to say the least. The prac­ tice of bestowing surnames for valor, Coriolanus from Corioli, is not attested elsewhere before the third

century. Corioli

was

not

a

Volscian town

and, from other sources, Rome is not known even to have been at

war

with the Volscians

at

the

story?

The

time of the alleged capture of Corioli.

What, then,

are

we

to make of the

most eminent historian of Republican Rome, The­

odore Mommsen, rejects it in toto tion

as

an

inven­

Others, more kindly dis­ posed to Roman historiography, suggest that it is an old legend reflecting a period when Rome of the

Annalists.

really did suffer from famine and Volscian raids.

Its detail is probably beyond rescue as history, and historians will forgive Shakespeare for exer-

35

cismg his

own

mythopoetic fancy after the prec­

edent of those writers who had told it earlier.

the Great, in which he says that the most glo­ rious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest manifestations of virtue and vice in men.

Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus-

Stuart G. B. Small

Sometimes, he points out, a turn of phrase or a characteristic pleasantry tells us more about and

character

inclination

than

long

stories

of

PLUTARCH (about A.D. 46-120) WAS BORN in

sieges and battles. For this reason Plutarch often puts aside politics and the fortunes of empires

the small town of Chaeronea in Boeotia and

in order to dwell instead

most of his

spent

long life there, although he did find

visit Rome occasionally and also jour­ neyed to Alexandria and Asia Minor and various parts of Greece and Italy. Late in life he held time

of

priests

at

Delphi,

the site of

Apollo's ancient

shrine, and had been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus.

He must have spent most of his quiet and un­ eventful life in writing, for he is one of the most

oracular

of classical

voluminous

the latest

authors:

edi­

tion of his surviving works

(in the "Loeb Classical Library") is expected to fill twenty-five volumes.

The range of his subject matter is vast, includ­ ing among other things archaeology, literature, education, philosophy, religion, psychology, as­ tronomy, and anthropology; but despite the great variety of the topics he touches on, his basic point of view remains essentially the same: it is that of the moralist, intent, in Montaigne's phrase, upon raising dunces out of the dirt, or to put it less succinctly, upon offering the reader advice

as

when faith

to

life is

how

to

be

lived

in the traditional

in

an

era

and

even religion, in the classical philosophies, was crumbling away into doubt, bewilderment, and despair.

His Parallel Lives, of which the life of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus is one, is undoubtedly his most famous work. The lives are not primarily his­ tory; that is, they are not intended to relate the continuous narrative of political and military events. Nor are they, paradoxically, biography, at least as the term is understood today: for they are not so much a presentation of the ways

in which individuals represent and influence their age, as an attempt to exemplify, in the lives of

action, certain universal and recurrent moral qualities, both good and bad. Plutarch's particular object is to convey to the reader a sense of his subject's greatness, and also an men

of

awareness

twined

of

with

some

his

of the faults that

particular form

of

were

inter­

greatness.

is incompatible with this object is deliberately omitted.

He justifies this technique in a celebrated pas­ sage at the beginning of the life of Alexander Whatever

36

what he calls

the

In the life of Coriolanus the author's basic strat­

to

office in the government of his native town. He was also a member for many years of the college

on

"marks and indications of the souls of men." egy is to divide up the "marks and indications of

the soul" into good points and bad points, with a view to casting up the accounts and arriving at a

final

stance,

score. are

The good

points, in the present in­

rather obvious and uninteresting

ex­

amples of archaic virtus; they are just the qual­ ities one would expect to find attributed to

a

of the Roman

simple

Republic. Coriolanus

was

hero

and

straightforward; he was a model of incor­ ruptibility; his personal life was rigorously ascet­ ic. In battle he showed extraordinary physical courage; his generalship, both when he was fight­ ing for Rome and against her, was skillful and foresighted. His greatest positive achievement was the taking of Corioli, the principal city of the Volscians, by a surprise attack; this victory earned him the honorary surname of Coriolanus.

His faults, as is so often the case, are more interesting than his virtues. They are also more psychologically complex; but they are hardly such as to endear him to the reader's heart, or in­ deed to any human being. He was constitutionally incapable of making his great actions and noble qualities acceptable to those whom he benefited.

Through fear of being thought weak and of ap­ pearing to curry favor he behaved with intoler­ able pride and haughtiness toward his fellow­ citizens, especially the plebeians. Such a person­ ality is hardly a political asset in a republic; and in Coriolanus' an

he

case

it led directly to his defeat in

election for the consulship, a post to which was fully entitled on the basis of his great

services to the state. Though he had professed no ambition for high office and had declined to ask for it as'

ward

a

pain

favor, he nevertheless felt great

in­

and indignation when the people re­ candidacy. Coriolanus' wounded feel­

jected his ings on this occasion furnish curious proof of his consuming thirst for preeminence.

In Plutarch's view this defeat marks a turning point in his career. Emboldened by his failure in the consular election, his enemies, the dema­ gogic tribunes of the people, determined to get rid of him once and for all by trumping up a charge that he had attempted to annul the priv-

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

ileges of tne plebeians and establish

senatorial

a

pride which had kept him from campaigning effectively for the consulship now prevented him from making an adequate de­ fense against the clever tribunes; they carried their point with the people, and Coriolanus was obliged to go into exile. autocracy. The

same

From this point forward the major motive force

behind all his actions

was

resentment.

Thirsting

for vengeance, he led his old enemies the Volscians

against Rome, and gained many victories. Like a second Achilles he harshly repelled the embas­ sies of his fellow-citizens who begged him to have mercy on his native land. He seemed nihilistic al­

ly determined to destroy and overthrow Rome.

But when his mother Volumnia, to whom he was intensely devoted, appeared before him as a sup­ pliant, he relented and spared the city for her

This, the sole instance of a forbearing and yielding action in the life of the inflexible hero, was, as Plutarch says, a "grace ungracious," a favor that was not a favor; for to concede all as a sake.

favor to Volumnia a

was

"less an honor to her than

dishonor to his city." In any event, the action suspicions of his Volscian friends, and

roused the soon

afterward Coriolanus

was

murdered.

What went wrong? Why was he unable to yield and accommodate his humors and sentiments to those of the people about him, incapable of act­ ing and associating with others? Plutarch has a

ready answer to this question, an answer which, as is so often the case in Plutarch, quietly dis­ poses of the problem without disturbing or dis­ quieting the reader's mind. The trouble, he says, goes back to the hero's early years. Coriolanus lost his father in childhood; therefore his up­ bringing was faulty and his education defective.

If he had had the benefit of the civilizing and humanizing influence of the Muses, he might have

been

made

to

submit

to

the

limitations

prescribed by reason, thus avoiding the wildness of extremes. This is a soothing solution and one flattering to the liberal arts, but it will not sat­ isfy all readers. Perhaps it does more to illu­ minate the personality of Plutarch than it does to explain the bedevilled and tormented Coriolanus.

Armada, or the Reformation. On the other hand, it is

favorite pastime of

a

that the

plays

are

different

from

the

present.

Coriolanus, but the drama is formation

about

course, true that

about or

Elizabethan

I T HAS OFTEN BEEN NOTED that it is difficult to discover in erence as

Shakespeare's plays any direct ref­

to the momentous events of his age such

the execution of Mary

Spring,

1960

Queen of Scots, the

The

historical

as­

gold mine of in­ England. It is, of

a

Shakespeare will tell you little

parliament, the

fate of the earl of

Essex

the personality of Gloriana, but he will present

something far more important to the historian­ the conditions, the standards, and the mental at­ titudes under which these events and personalities operated.

In most of Shakespeare's histories and some of his tragedies there is a recurrent theme which is central to the sixteenth century and is univer­ sal to man in society regardless of time or geog­

raphy. This is the question or series of interre­ questions about the nature of the state.

What is the perfect state? Wherein does its perfection lie? What is man's role in the state?

Is the state sacrosanct? If so, how do we explain or justify the successful revolution; if not, where can society find any enduring order, justice, sta­ bility, or standard other than force which creates its own "right--or rather, right and wrong." Tudor England trumpeted from every pulpit and forum its concept of the state-an organic and corporate organism grounded upon a due regard for order and degree. No Elizabethan was "born only for himself but for his country lated

The modern tenet that the state is a human

also."

contrivance man

was

organized for the material well-being unknown to the

which still believed that

Lacy B. Smith

authors to argue

pects of his plays are accidental; you can learn nothing about fifth century B.C. Rome from

of

Coriolanus and the State-

some

political manifestoes in dis­ guise, and that Coriolanus, for instance, is really a defense of James I in his chronic bickering with his rebellious and unruly parliaments.

Though it is impossible to prove that Shakespeare Elizabethan or Jacobean politics in' ever had mind, it is nevertheless important to point out that all of his history plays are in fact contem­ porary plays. Shakespeare had almost no con­ ception of history. History was merely contem­ porary events taking place in the past, and the past was regarded as being in no way essentially

men

sixteenth were

century,

born

into

a

divinely ordained society with certain established privileges and duties. The Tudor view of the organic and the favorite analogy was beehive, the human body or other forms of animal and vegetable life. In CorioLanus the analogy is to the human body. The body politic state

was

to the

has

a

life of its own,

and every member of the

body has prescribed functions and is dependent

37

every

upon

other

element

the

of

organism. In

Richard II the comparison is to the garden in which all plants are "trimmed and dress'd" that "look too lofty in our commonwealth." Order, de­ gree and balance, these

ordered realm, for,

as

are

the secrets of

a

well­

Bishop Bonner remarked,

"in matters of state, individuals were not to be so much regarded as the whole body of the

citizens.

"

the

and

operate

individual

fails

to

fulfill

his

proper function within the commonwealth. As the

representative

of the

"better

sets himself 'above the "more

This is

right

headed

multitude"

part," part"

Coriolanus of society.

and

just, for the vulgar, "many­ must have leadership, and quality must always take precedence over mere quantity. But Coriolanus' insatiable pride leads him to presume that he is superior not only to the but to the state itself. He refuses to

ac­

subservience to the

cept whole, and he dismisses the ancient custom of appearing before the people

acknowledging their just weight within society. (Weight is a more apt word than voice and

since the latter has democratic overtones which

Shakespeare's generation would never have sanctioned.) In the end Coriolanus destroys him­ self because he refuses to recognize that others have rights (and duties) enshrined in history.

It is as though the heart refused to recognize its dependence upon and the importance of the other organs of the body. In doing this it kills itself and the entire organism.

The

case

of

Coriolanus

is

similar

to

that

of

Richard II. All rights and privileges in the six­ teenth century were ascribed to divine inspira­

tion, and Richard in denying the rights of Here­ ford to inherit his father's lands

in fact denies

divine right of kings. When this happens the state is no longer sacrosanct; it has ceased

his

own

to be

organic at the moment when one rebellious

society usurps the function or fails to recognize the rights of another member. Richard had become landlord of England, not king. Corio­ lanus committed the same crime; by refusing to acknowledge the rights of even those of inferior degree, he destroyed his own position as the nat­ ural and rightful leader of the state.

The fate of Coriolanus has nothing directly to do with Elizabeth, Essex, James, or James's parliaments; but the play does reveal the intel­ lectual atmosphere in which the events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took place.

With Shakespeare's help we can comprehend something that the great playwright himself organ of

38

Shakespeare's answers need not be those of the twentieth century. For the Tudor age thought in other terms; its frame of reference, and its view of society and of the state from

our

quite different

were

own.

Coriolanus: A Political Jl iew Richard C. Snyder -

Coriolanus is the story of what happens when "law and form and due proportion" no longer

masses

fully appreciated-that the problems of the past may be similar to those of the present, but

never

As a

POLITICAL SCIENTIST, rather than as qualified student of Shakespeare, I find Plu­ A

tarch's original story of Coriolanus a tastier mor­ sel for political

wright's

analysis than the play. The play­

omissions and alterations

seem

to

con­

of the interrelations of

intriguing study leadership, institutional instability, immediate crisis, and social change, into a drama which often verges on farce. However, both the story and the play can be read profitably in the light of problems and developments in certain areas of the contemporary world. It is tempting to ask what elements, if any, in Shakespeare's own po­ litical ideology influenced his modifications of Plutarch's version of this episode in Roman his­ tory. But to a void doing either his ideology or his craftsmanship an injustice, I shall accept the drama at face value-as if it all really happened vert

an

that way.

Systematic analysis of the nature and effective­ of leadership is a relatively recent phenom­ enon, though intuitive concern over political lead­ ership is age-old. Coriolanus' behavior during his brief excursion into politics is highly significant quite apart from any light it casts on his person­ ality. Apparently he found it impossible or in­ ness

advisable to establish rapport with his constit­ uents and even his fellow governors. His public appearances were few and for everyone. He presented

clearly frustrating an

austere,

almost

one-dimensional, external self to those whose sup­ port he needed and who were eager to follow him.

Assuming there are two important components in the leader-follower relationship, the affective (or feeling) component, and the official role compo­ nent (reciprocal obligations and responsibilities), we on

may say that Coriolanus blundered miserably both counts. He rebuffed admiration and grat­

itude for his sisted that

personal military exploits. He in­ 'official role was to be defined

his

solely by him, and he openly stated that the peo­ ple who had to live by his decisions were too stupid to understand what a consul had to do or why. While a leader can afford to be careless or

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

ineffectual with respect to one of these compo­ nents, to fail in each case is fatal. In sum, Corio­

tions of the

lanus could not be the

-were

living political symbol of

and without protest. Meanwhile, the actual opera­ state-particularly the military ones in the hands of the elite. This constituted

Rome because the populace found it impossible to

an

identify themselves with him in any meaningful,

marked discrepancy between power and responsi­

satisfying

sense.

As

he

lacked the capacity to

dramatize himself or issues in the

statesman,

so

he also lacked the

manner

successful politician to cultivate grass roots

con­

prescription for instability:

a

bility.

of the

capacity of the

almost classic

If

we

draw

may

lesson

a

from

which Shakespeare depicted in his appear to be this:

no

the

situation

play, it would

political system can be in­

tacts. One of the lessons might be: the people want

ternally effective and maintain itself against out­

leaders to be "different" and somewhat "distant,"

side attack in the absence of

yet not too much so, and leaders

importance. Two bases of consensus are (1) agreed procedures for making choices and administering the govern­ ment and (2) agreed goals of political action.

Shakespeare's Romans were not, apparently, dedi­ cated to clearly understood common goals, nor were they committed to certain operating prin­ ciples such as the "agreement to disagree."

must have the

feet of clay of all mortals without capped by them.

being handi­

Having had only limited political experience, people and their tribunes lacked the ability to distinguish between a leader's politically rele­ vant capacities and his non-relevant personal characteristics. Furthermore, among the trib­ unes and particularly the senators, there was ap­ parently none willing to help create an indirect image of Coriolanus as an acceptable leader.

Even simpler governmental systems require the "art of politics" and attention to management.

One is struck by the almost total absence of political skills in this sequence of events. Corio­ lanus' enemy, Aufidius, is a clever opportunist, but only Menenius, Coriolanus' intimate friend and admirer, bore any semblance to the kind of mediator, trouble-shooter and astute observer who is so necessary to facilitate the political proc­ ess.

Menenius' skills were inadequate. Further­ more, he was unable to separate his loyalty to Coriolanus from the performance of his advisory function. It was as though a Harry Hopkins be­ the

came

such

a

fan of

an

FDR that he lost his

acu­

men and quiet effectiveness. Nor are the two tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, able to control com­ pletely their manipulations of the people's atti­ tudes and actions. With no one having foresight and the gift of legitimate compromise, the system produced an end result no one really wanted.

Political skill consists in part of identifying and exploring the limits beyond which lie serious

breakdowns and unwanted consequences.

To the lack of political skills must be

on

sus

a

minimal

consen­

matters of fundamental

Hence there

was

factional

no

and

consensus

to

circumscribe

effective mechanism for

splits mobilizing a new consensus. Coriolanus bitterly highlighted the lack of consensus-ironically enough when he made his short, abortive cam­ paign for office-and his banishment from Rome demonstrated that power could be captured tem­ porarily by inept individuals and the persistence of

one

out

no

element in the power structure, all with­

ample opportunity for exploring alternatives.

At

the

end, everyone seems to be standing wondering how it all could have hap­ The pened. way it happened was as revealing of around

the

absence of

as was

conditions

the final

scene

of

stable

government

itself. Rome was undergo­

ing political transition. If the behavior of a single individual helped to trigger an institutional de­ bacle, the very conditions under which it could occur were augurs of a Rome which, in fact and in history, developed to a high degree a consen­ sus

on

both the aims and

procedures of govern­

ment.

W hat Does Coriolanus Tell the Economists?-

added

Frank W. Fetter

the factor of institutional transition. Power rela­

tionships between the common man and the pa­ tricians, and between the tribunes and the sena­ tors, were changing. Expectations and roles were

LONG BEFORE FREUD, playwrights, like

less clear than

sometimes

they

had been before concessions

many

other persons, were

sensed that men's

determined

actions

by memories and

made to the plebeians by the ruling group as a response to economic unrest. During the- peri­

emotions buried deep in their minds and of which

od

way,

were

of

uncertainty, the tribunes pushed toward

maximum

use

of

whatever

new

been granted and the senators

Spring,

1960

discretion had

acted

hesitantly

they were not themselves aware. And in the same long before Adam Smith and Karl Marx expression in great literature that economic problems were important and the the idea found

39

sumption function or of deficit finance as a cure

comings explanation of economic distress, and the economic basis of the conflict between the people and the Roman leaders fades into the background.

As Shakespeare pictures it, after the opening scene, the people's opposition to Coriolanus is not that he has impoverished them for the benefit of the privileged rich, but simply that he is power hungry and has a contempt for the people. And we would give a tortured interpre­

for unemployment.

tation to Coriolanus'

economic

might influence the

forces

history. Hence, it is tempting for as

for any

from his

to examine

specialist,

an

a

course

of

economist,

classic work

interests and prejudices. This has a sense of perspective,

own

its usefulness if one keeps

easily lead to such absurdities as try­ ing appraise the understanding that Shake­ speare's characters showed of the Keynesian con­

but could to

There is

distinction, not always easy to make

a

practice, between economic problems that are

in

universal and those that

linked to culture

are

to economic institutions. That

men

or

must eat and

will "soak the rich" and overthrow governments before they will starve is close to a universal

action,

that labor

or

same

does,

stock

propositions apply in some, but not in all, situations.

common

are

may

to

opens

a

scene

of the rich.

the selfishness

A Roman

citizen

harangues the crowd with the rhetorical ques­ tion:' "You to

are

famish?"

with the corn

feits

at on

cry: our

resolved

all

rather to

die

than

against Coriolanus kill him, and we'll have

and turns them

"Let

own

us

would relieve

authority surthe gods know I

us:

speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge."

This is suggestive, if the threats of revolution are removed, of the optimistic approach of Adam Smith

to

sufficient

economics: for

with

all

wise

policy there is work. The reply of

Our spoils he kick'd at.

And look'd upon things precious, as they were The common muck of the world: he covets less Than misery itself would give; rewards His deeds with doing them, and is content To spend the time to end it.

The words of Menenius Agrippa seem ment

on

the

nothing of a god

When

we

economic

pected

But

minimizes

the

interpretation

of

war

might have

ex­

references

to

trade

some

between

wars

the

as

Shakespeare devoid

For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it, and Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack, You are transported by calamity Thither where more attends you, and you slander The helms 0' the state, who care for you like fathers,

When you

curse

them

as

enemies.

Shakespeare, however, does not introduce any Roman prototype of John Stuart Mill to offer a solution for the natural laws versus human short-

40

is

the

Volscians.

concerned

economic

of

these

motives

as

of. tough fifth

couple graders trading insults and bloody noses, who look forward with anticipation to the

who

a

revel in

and

next encounter.

There throws

is

light

the

play

that

of

the

time.

nothing

in

the

economic

life

on

Coriolanus has

King

the

virtually

Lear care

and

as

the fisticuffs of

routes, fertile

contributing to the con­

were

shortage:

.

as

Romans

far

as

as

who

an

fields, or rich mines, flicts

the

to

emerges: a cause of

economist

Even

war.

and

.

a

picture

same

the economic does not stand out

philosophy,

.

eternity and

individual clashes

shift from

struggles of nations, the

the

tell you, friends, most charitable Have the patricians of you.

ambitions:

heaven to throne in."

economic

I

but

fair judg­

a

Coriolanus'

of

nature

willing to Agrippa, however, is in the fatalistic in Malthusian tradition explaining the food Menenius

ex­

says of him:

What

price

tried to

suggestion that he craved ma­ possessions or the control of the economic resources of Rome. His fellow general, Cominius,

"He wants

suggestive of Paris before the fall of the Bastille, or of England in the days when the Anti-Corn Law League was a political power: the hungry masses aroused by the cry that the food shortage is due Coriolanus

with

that

we

terial

the best market in

seeks

way that scrap iron or General Motors

if

but there is little

proposition. But that men prefer economic power to honor, that the equalization of marginal reve­ nue and marginal cost is the mainspring of human the

actions

plain them on economic grounds: he loved power,

no

the

discussions with overtones of such

Earl

of

as

the reflections of

Gloucester

in

King

the contrasts of wealth and poverty, or partly satirical speech of Gonzalo in The on

Tempest on the ideal commonwealth where men live without working and property is divided equally: Once the grain shortage has been used in the opening scene to launch the plebeians' attack on Coriolanus, the picture of Rome, ex­ cept for some passing comments on grain in Act III, is a city in which men orate, intrigue and fight, but give no thought to operating a func­ tioning economy. Someone in the background must have supplied the food, clothing and shelter

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

for the Romans, but Shakespeare shows

no

more

interest in

discussing that than political report­ telling of a dinner of Congressional leaders,

ers,

would have in the

room

was

explaining the processes by which heated, the food prepared, or the

been

met

by his mother, Volumnia.

No

other

identifications had been open to him in the little world that was his childhood home. Consequently,

it becomes pertinent to inquire what sort of per­ son she was. Some Shakespearean critics see in

dishes washed. Except for a reference in Act IV, Scene I, to "our tradesmen singing in their

her the

shops," Shakespeare pictures no one in the Rome as engaged in any economic ac­ tivity. For an evaluation of Shakespeare's pic­ ture of the motivations of Roman life in the days of Coriolanus, the economist must turn over the major responsibility to the political scientist and the psychologist.

terpretation I must disagree. In her very first appearance (I, 3) she reproaches his wife, Vir­ gilia, for lamenting the absence of Coriolanus; boasts of having sent him to war at what was an unusually early age (sixteen); and reacts approv­ ingly, making an evident comparison with her son. to the story of her young grandson eventually killing the butterfly with his teeth, after teasing it by repeated capture and release. Here and in later scenes, she is shown as an extremely non­ maternal person, intent on molding her son into a preconceived image that serves to gratify her own masculine strivings.

She is shown to have withheld praise and to have given him but little affection. She is fiercely non-feminine in all scenes

of Coriolanus

Coriolanus: An Exercise in Psychoanalysis

-

Rohert I. Watson

o mother, mother!

What have you 'done? Behold, the heavens do ope, The gods look down, and this unnatural scene They laugh at. 0 my mother, mother! O! You have won a happy victory to Rome; But for your son believe it, 0 believe it!

Most dangerously you have with him prevailed, If not most mortal to him.

PSYCHOANALYSIS WAS DEVELOPED by Sig­ through his

work with

emotionally

disturbed adults. Over the years of his clinical practice he and his followers developed a detailed

interpreting the dynamics of the in­ personality. Because of the insight it gives, the use of the psychoanalytic interpreta­ schema for

dividual

tion of human nature has been extended to the

entire gamut of human experience, including lit­ erature, religion, and art. As a means of literary criticism the rules of interpretive strategy that are applied to literature have been worked out in the clinic with the of less

living tortured counterparts

grand Coriolanuses and less noble Volum­

nias.

I shall offer

psychoanalytic interpretation of personality Coriolanus, and then examine the dynamic significance of the relation of the course of events in the life of Shakespeare, at the time he was writing Coriolanus, to the course of events he gives us in the play. the

a

of

Psychoanalytic interpretation of Coriolanus' per­ sonal tragedy centers upon the characteristics of his personality as formed in his early relation­

ships to his mother, and in the relation of these characteristics

decisions

from which

the

Coriolanus had lost his father in infancy.

His

to

his

play takes its being. emotional needs in childhood must, perforce, have

Spring,

1960

except one-about which I shall say

more

later.

-

-

mund Freud

admirable, noble Roman matron of the days when the Republic was young. With this in­

A conception of a dynamic

relationship between frustration and aggression, although not unique to psychoanalysts, is accepted within their thinking.

Childhood frustrations are interpreted as giving aggressive behavior in adult life. A boy frustrated, as Coriolanus was, would be expected to be unconsciously very hostile to his mother, the source of his childhood frustrations.

Despite this, he would also be expected to be very much dependent upon her. That Coriolanus is dependent upon her is common knowledge to the persons of the play. In the very first scene, one of the plebeians, who surely had no personal knowledge, says of Coriolanus that he pays him­ self for his exploits by his pride, and that he has done what he did "to please his mother."

What sort of man emerged from this boyhood?

Through the course of the play he is shown re­ peatedly to be physically courageous, outspoken, and proud. In fact, these characteristics are so obvious that they do not need documentation.

Their very obviousness suggests a certain exag­ geration about each of these traits. His bravery is rashness, his pride is arrogance, and his out­ spokenness is rudeness. There is something driv­ ing and rigid about these salient characteristics.

Psychoanalytically speaking, this particular con­ stellation of traits and their exaggeration would lead to the interpretation that Coriolanus is what is called a "phallic" character, a form of imma­ ture adult personality. The causative factors for a phallic character are to be sought in the events occurring in the stage of development extending rise

to

41

from 3 to 6 years of age. Normally, during these a working out and dissolution of

years there is

problem of the Oedipus complex, and its re­ placement by sublimated affection for the par­ ents. Difficulty of resolving the Oedipus complex would be expected from his childhood situation.

Lacking a father, Coriolanus identified himself with the masculine characteristics of Volumnia, at the same time never resolving his Oedipal long­ ings for the mother. In this perspective, his ar­ rogant pride could be seen as his main line of defense against passive yearnings and unresolved Oedipal desires. That he did have these longings for passivity can be shown by other considera­

major defense, his arrogant pride, but still he is

repulsed.

the

tions.

Psychoanalytically speaking, it has been found

We now

come

to the

mystery of the play. Why

did he spare Rome? In broad outline and at

a

slightly superficial level, one can say it is because his mother asked him to! Surely, we must look deeper than this. We find the solution in how Volumnia asked him to spare Rome.

Once, and only once, is Volumnia

a

woman.

This is in the pivotal scene in which Coriolanus is before Rome. When she falls

on

her knees and

begs Coriolanus to spare Rome he finds that his resolve to destroy the city disappears. His un­ conscious hostility toward her, as well as some of his conscious hostility toward mother Rome, is dissolved, at least partially in what he himself

that one characteristic form of defense of the ego

calls "this unnatural scene."

of the phallic character is the attribution to other

abandons

persons of his

and only time, he spares Rome. In keeping with

istics.

What

own are

strong unconscious character­ the

characteristics

that

Cor­

iolanus

projects upon the plebeians? They are seen as cowardly, parasitic, covetous, and pleas­ ure-loving. He also sees them as "foes to noble­ ness." Surely, he consciously believes that he shows the opposite of these qualities. It is plaus­ ible, therefore, to conclude that the mob repre­ sents a personification of the unacceptable im­ pulses in his own personality. These unconscious drives to projection are so powerful in Coriolanus that he has to struggle to behave in a fashion the very opposite of the traits which, though well-. ing up within him, must at all costs be hidden.

He must behave rigidly to protect himself. Even small concession to these unconscious charac­

a

teristics might be catastrophic in character. For example, Coriolanus cannot even behave non-ar­

rogantly enough to follow the then common prac­ tice of showing his wounds in the market place or to show civility, let alone humbleness, at his trial. He cannot modify his behavior flexibly. He cannot change a little, he must stay as he is, or change a lot. is plausible to infer that in Act II and in III, particularly in the crucial third scene of the latter, there is an unconscious interpretation of Rome as a mother figure. Heretofore, Corio­ lanus has wanted nothing from Rome except to defend and to serve her. Now he is asking for ac­ ceptance of himself as consul. In effect, he is asking that he be seen as a father figure. Upon his being accused of being a traitor the uncon­ scious significance would be that Rome is saying It

Act

that his acts have been

he

really

mother.

42

wanted

entirely selfish and that

exclusive

possession

of

the

her

his "brittle"

When his mother

behavior

masculine

for

the

first

personality that must break but not

bend, he not only spares Rome, he exacts no ret­ ribution whatsoever, merely marching his army back to the camp of Aufidius.

There a situation of bitter irony awaits him. In scene of the play, before Coriolanus is assassinated, Aufidius echoes the charge made by

the last

the citizen of the first scene, that he did what he did for his mother. He charges Coriolanus with

being a boy. Clinically, when an individual re­ sponds with greater violence than the situation seems to call for, one suspects that something of considerable emotional significance has been touched upon. Coriolanus is stimulated to eloquent fury by the charge of being "a boy," thrice re­ peating the word, and also linking it with a ref­ erence

of

to his mother

being

a

boy

act which showed

in a

as

a

He is accused

nurse.

connection

with

his

one

dawning emotional maturity.

Psychological conjectures may be hazarded con­ cerning the relationship between the experiences of Shakespeare, the author, and their projection in Coriolanus, the play. If all writing is a great confession, then Coriolanus may be a particularly * important fragment.

There

are

certain facts

in

the life

of

Shake­

speare that must first be mentioned. Let us make the not unreasonable assumption that Corio­ lanus

was

written late in 1608

or

early

in 1609

while Shakespeare was still living in London. His

mother had died September 9, 1608. During this period, without his permission, the Sonnets were •

Holfling, C. K., An interpretation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Amer. Imago, 1957, 14, 407-435.

He has set aside for the first time his

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

published. Shortly after writing CorioLanus, he re­

Coriolanus' arrogant sense of superiority over men drives him to exacerbate to a

tired to Stratford where he resumed living with

ordinary

his wife and wrote certain other plays. How

can

dangerous pitch the political tensions between the

events

patricians and the tribunes, who represent the plebeians, and it is the force which precipitates

related

experiences be depicted in Coriolanus?

these

At the very least,

indicated. speare

a

series of

Coriolanus

leaves

to

parallels may be

abandons

London.

the

Rome;

Coriolanus

is

Shake­

separated

mother by his death; Shakespeare is separated from his mother by her death. Corio­ from

his

the events which bring about his exile from Rome and

his death.

It is

a

kind of pride

in the accusation of the tribunes:

lanus draws closer to his wife

during the play; Shakespeare resumes living with his wife after writing the play. The departure of Coriolanus from Rome is preceded by a very personal scene brought about without his volition; the departure of Shakespeare from London is preceded by a personal revelation, the publication of the Sonnets

ultimately

which separates Coriolanus from most men and almost from humanity itself. There is some truth

You speak 0' th' people As if you were a god to punish, not A man of their infirmity.

only thing which makes his pride admirable passionate desire to excel, to be worthy of the reputation of being Rome's chief The

is Coriolanus'

soldier and defender. And, for better or worse, this fierce striving for excellence has been

probably without his permission. The rela­ tions just sketched show a certain inner coher­ ence which lends plausibility to the autobiograph­ ical character of the play, but this pattern does

even

not constitute proof.

populace, sometimes embarrassing his patrician friends, subordinating his independence to the egotism of his mother, but great enough in his own way, and excelling all others in war, and thus gaining a grudging admiration even from those he hates. At a certain point, however, Cor­

very

In the

same

vein and with the

same

caution

that, following the death of his mother, Shakespeare was able to write a search­ ing study of the mother-son relationship which one

can

say

delineated the effects of a mother fixation on the

outset that

survive

as

Coriolanus might have continued to he was, occasionally offending the

son, and revealed the

iolanus takes

the

he cannot control, and

beginnings of resolution of Thereafter Shakespeare returned to Stratford to write, with a new seren­ ity, the romantic comedies, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale, and that happiest of his mature accomplishments, The Tempest. resultant

conflicts.

CORIOLANUS

less

appealing and sympa­ thetic figure than most of Shakespeare's tragic heroes. Many of his actions in the play arise from his fierce hostility to the weaknesses of common

men

a

and from his

attachment to

and

dependence upon his mother. The first of these makes him something less than amiable; the second detracts from the sense of independence and stature which we associate with the protag­ onists in the tragic tradition.

There are, to be

greatness about him, for he is a valiant soldier who has done his country extraor­ sure, marks of

dinary service. But his bravery is sometimes quixotic and he commands his men by goading and humiliating them. Cominius, his general, is made to appear more judicious as a warrior and more humane as a leader.

Spring,

1960

step which creates circumstances a

as

consequence his chief in their most de­

are

structive form.

He agrees to

made

being

a

engaged

consul, one

accept the honor of

of

the

which is that he must submit to

by

wounds

showing he

has

to

the

received

citizens in

conditions

an

ancient

of

his

Rome

of

cus­

the

country's asking for their voices. It is not his pride, however, which prompts him to seek this office

wars

and

but is

a

characteristics

tom

Coriolanus as a Tragic HeroMoody E. Prior

It is conceivable at the

inspired by his mother.

his

mother's

entreaties

and

commands.

These 'he cannot resist, but though he consents he does so with reluctance, knowing that he is about to perform an act which violates his in­ tegrity. And so it is an act which he can perform only badly, and in consenting to perform it he enters upon the path that leads to his destruction.

In the encounter during which he stands for office, the plebeians come off better than he; when he asks insolently what the price is for the consulship they reply, "The price is to ask it kindly." But while the citizens may be willing to overlook his offensive

manner

in order that his

merits

might be rewarded, the tribunes, who are politicians, are not, and they foment a serious political crisis. Coriolanus consents under pres­ sure to appease the mob, though again only be­ cause of an appeal from his mother. Now, how-

43

he

ever,

genumely bewildered: how can his dissemble, to go counter

is

mother counsel him to

hatred

and

concluding episodes which accentuates the which

pride in taught him?

Even more clearly than in the first instance, he knows that he will be acting without honor

to

because he will be violating his nature. "Possess me," he cries, "some harlot's spirit."

you is no

the

to

Such

of

virtues

patrician

lowness which

she

denial of one's

a

the

to

has

essential character

in

family. When he

the

new

with

situation

he

success,

humility, or commonsense, or the hypoc­ of the unscrupulous politician. Possessing risy none of these, he is easily driven by the tribunes to a monumental rage which provides proof for their accusations and

brings about his exile. He

allies

himself with Aufidius, the leader of the enemy of Rome, and marches on to destroy his native city. Only an appeal from his mother Rome. Once more he accedes to her wishes,

but he

proclaims

as

he

does

so

that this

time

her influence is "most mortal" to him.

In

final

this

capitulation

to

his

mother

iolanus appears most like other mortal

Cor­

men.

He

deeply touched by the appearance of his wife, child, and his mother, and by the pleas of

is

his

Volumnia to

save

his homeland from destruction.

indication, however, that his under­ standing has been enlarged by this experience, or his humanity. Nowhere does Volumnia speak with such honesty and wisdom as in her There is

no

reproach: Think'st thou

it honourable for

a

noble

man

shouts,

"I banish

world elsewhere." But there

a

without

changeable

a

in

discovers

The

who

determines

is

that

the

his

death

and

brings it about is the

he

admired

man

all

above

populace,

Corioli.

others

and

supreme

upon

one

with

man

whom

seems

to

be

swayed, however,

not

by her

words but by her old authority over him, obey­ ing once more the demands of the person whose

hopes for him had formed his char­

ideals

and

acter

and whose wishes had

There

is

a

curious

shaped his destiny.

irony about

some

of

of any of this, and in that fact may be found the secret of his puzzling narrowness as a tragic

hero.

Like

speare,

ities

the

which

set

heroes

of

Shake­

powers

and

qual­

apart from ordinary

men,

other

Coriolanus

tragic

possesses

him

and like them he enters upon a course of action which involves him in circumstances he cannot meet with

success

But in

significant respect he is unlike them. protagonists of Shakespeare's major

The

one

other

and which leads to disaster.

tragedies all reach a moment of self awareness, they attempt to formulate for themselves the meaning of their destiny, and their final actions seem colored by a realization of all that has gone

before.

Coriolanus

never

reaches

such

a

high point of self-knowledge or humanity. The play, Coriolanus, is not for this reason to be regarded as defective or deficient, for in its own it is brilliant and wholly satisfactory.

Shakespeare never bound himself to anyone formula, and he realized the possibilities of his art in a great variety of forms. It is neverthe­ less one way of defining the special properties of this particular play to note that its principal

fashion

cannot be placed on a level of com­ plete equality alongside those magnificent cre­ ations of Shakespeare's mature genius whose fail­ ures in a practical sense inspire awe and re­ spect, who in their progress from well-being to misfortune enlarge our apprehension of the human condition, and who in meeting disaster

character

Still to remember wrongs?

He

to

alone he would admit comparison with himself.

needed

saves

him

Coriolanus never appears to become really aware

meet

now

lead

perverse

in

themselves

manifest

and unfamiliar forms.

To

life

Being what he is, Corio­ is not fit to undertake his assigned role.

will

they

lanus

world

he

as

teristic and habitual virtues will be

constrained,

his

is exiled he

There is

....

irony

or

devoted

has

he

make peace with his bitter enemies and to seek the destruction of his city, his friends, and his

individual with great powers and strong prin­ ciples is potentially tragic. Either one's charac­

an

limi­

tations of Coriolanus' vision. The exalted virtues

the

add a cubit to their stature.

44 NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

Barbara 1 Fox Barbara Joan Fox is a junior in the College of Liberal Arts. Her home is in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was born and received her early school­ ing. She lives at Hobart House, is English Composition.

member of Lorelei, and is

a

a

major in

THE SUM HE DIDN'T

LIKE the way she had said that.

"Robert!" Loud

the whole class

so

They'd all turned their heads

could hear.

and looked at

him, and he felt indecent as if he'd forgotten to zip up his fly when he came back from the lavatory.

His hands were sweating. She'd caught him at something and he was ashamed. He didn't know what it was yet but there were so many things you could be ashamed of. He stole a quick glance downward.

"You've got to pay attention to your work." So Why. It wasn't as bad as he'd thought,

that was

but he still felt

as

evil.

his

if he'd been

doing something the smudged-up paper and he felt thirty pairs of eyes boring into

He heard her breathing behind him and he knew her big breasts

going in and out. She had a

were

double chin. At least that's what his father called it because his

grandmother had

too. He felt the bottom of his

a

own

chin like that face. He

only

had one chin.

The numbers on the page were thick and black, because

that

was

the way those pencils wrote.

always told him his paper was messy. He didn't think it was messy at all except maybe She

of the numbers

some

were

bit crooked

a

or

too

big. That was the way those pencils wrote. He'd better get to work or soon she would tell the class

He stared down at the first group of black numbers he had written at the top of the page and

stop and trade their papers and he wouldn't be ready.

He always had to exchange papers with the girl sitting next to him, who picked her scabs all the time. He didn't like girls who picked their scabs.

The teacher would read the answers and they would mark each other's papers and then they would hand them in. His always had big fat x's all over it. After that she would put problems on the

tried to think them in his mind. 5 and 2 made 7

board and call

He

bent

head

over

him from every corner of the room. Darn her!

Why did she have to make everybody look at

him?

Why couldn't she just leave him alone? sitting in the fourth

Then no one would notice him seat in the third row.

and 1

8. Without looking up he could tell she

was

was standing behind him, sucking absently on one earpiece of the black-rimmed glasses she held in her hand. She was always watching him. When she said something to him she'd glare at him with

those black eyes and he would see all the little dark hairs on her upper lip and then he would want

to

on

kids for the answers,

and he

would wait and wait and wait and finally the bell would

ring and he could go

to

the

cloak

room

and get his coat.

5 and 2 made 7 and 1

8 plus 2 was 10 going back and forth in the street below the window. When they went to the cloak room everyone would push and the coats

He could hear the

was

...

cars

to look down at his shoes. But he couldn't because

would get knocked off the hooks but he would find

glaring at him so hard that he was

his under the pile on the floor and then he could go

she would be

home. He wondered

unable to turn his eyes away.

He'd forgotten where he over again. 5 and 2 were 7 go

through

was ...

and had to start he would have to

five numbers before he would get to

the bottom of the column. There were five figures and five

5 and 2 were 7

that?

done

so

bent

over

count

Spring,

how

1960

if

How many times had he said he

didn't

get finished

she

made him stay after class and do the rest. He wanted to know how everyone else got done so fast. Like Jimmy for instance. How did Jimmy get

he had to do.

and

....

Sometimes

figures down. He decided to stop many problems there were. It would be better if he knew how many problems across

why they called it a "cloke

room." He wasn't too sure what "cloke" meant.

fast? He looked at Jimmy's dark head his wooden desk. Jimmy was always

45

captain of the softball team. Maybe they would let Robert play today. They played in that empty side street next to his house every day, but they didn't like him to play because he always missed the ball when it came to him. They didn't know it but really he would be the best player of them all

Had it been 29

they would give him a chance. Some day he would be so good that he would play on the top team in the country and he wouldn't even look at them when they came and asked him to be their pitcher. When he batted he would always make home runs. He could hear everyone cheering

smear.

for him as he ran around the bases.

8 and 2

soon

as

as

5 and 2 were 7 and 1 was 8 and 2 made 10 plus 9 made 19. He wrote down the 9 below the line at the bottom

and said in his

mind "carry 1." If

play he would go hunting in his jungle. Actually it wasn't a jungle; it was only thev didn't Jet him

they hadn't built anything yet and

where

there

whole bunch of skinny trees. But if you stood right in the middle of it you could hardly see

were

a

the houses all around and then you could you were a

pretend

great hero on a safari and there were

tigers in the bushes.

Skippy would go with him too and be his ele­ phant. Then when he was tired of slaying all those tigers barehanded, and it was almost time for his mother to call him home to dinner, he would sit on the curb and make

Skippy lie down next to him.

When he sat like that with that big head in his lap, he

could feel the warm spot on his leg where Skippy always stuck his paw. Skippy was his secret agent who understood everything, and some day they were going to track down criminals together.

She was

bending over to say something to him.

He didn't like her hot wet breath

on

the back of

his neck. "Robert, stop daydreaming."

"Oh.

or

19

9? He'd have to add it

or

again to find out. This time it came out to 18. It wasn't even supposed to be a 9. He'd made a mistake. He picked up the fat rubber eraser on his desk and tried to that

eraser

erase

the 9. When he used

always ended up with

he

a

black

Well, it would have to do. He wrote an 8

dark as he could in the middle of the smear and put a little 1 at the top of the next column so he as

would remember to carry it. No, that was wrong. Maybe it wasn't 18. Maybe he had been right in the first place. 5 and 2 were 7 and 1 was were 10 and 9 was 19. He sighed in ex­ asperation. He'd have to erase it again.

It seemed like he had been sitting there forever waiting for that class to end. She had told them to exchange papers to be checked before he had even finished the first problem, and the girl who picked her scabs had smirked because that meant she could mark big x's all over the page. They had done problems from the board and he had kept hoping she wouldn't call on him so he wouldn't have to hear his voice announcing to the class, "I haven't got it figured out yet." But that had happened too. Now she was talking to him once more and everyone was staring at him again. He

wished he could sink down into the wood of his chair and disappear.

"Robert, 1 want you to stay

after class and finish your addition."

Angry tears stung the corners of his

eyes and

he had that familiar pinched feeling at the top of his nose. When everyone got up to get their coats he would have to stay in his seat. They would empty out of the room, looking back over their shoulders at him and later he would still be there with his

addition, hearing them laugh and yell at

each other outside. The four walls would close him in with the sound of her

"

heavy breathing, which

would come to him from the front of the

room

as

She straightened up and strolled down the aisle,

he

struggled

gazing down on the head of each student in turn.

He wondered if she had a dog. No, of course not.

the

crooked

He'd forgotten what he was supposed to carry.

He stared at the 9 at the bottom of the column.

sniff aimlessly at rusty tin cans, wondering where

46

Skippy

would

to

find

black

the

right

numbers.

wander

answers

And

through

the

back

among

home

jungle, and

he was.

NORTHWESTERN

TRI-QUARTERLY

Harold M Crutsmacher; IT. Harold M. Grutzmaeher, Jr. is presently teaching at Carthage College and completing the requirements for his Ph.D. at Northwestern. He was graduated from Beloit in 1952, received his M.A. at Northwestern in 1953, taught as as­ sistant in the English Department, and subsequently served for two years in the U.S. Army.

POEMS The Gallery They sat, the bright room quiet, Unconcerned with persons, occupied With beauty on the walls, And they remained, stern as the room, Staring at a canvas with shaded eyes.

"Seurat, what would you have?

I perceive you, your world worth having; I know you, not in words,

And for her possibility there must be That same perception without words.

Is that too much, painter Jacques Of the frozen line and dots?

If she does not perceive, if she attempts Some plague of words, she could not hold

If he speaks it is gone, But shall I ever know?"

After a long time

They left through the shadows Without a look or word.

Variations on a Theme 01 Stevens Long-Tailed Ponies Go Nosing The Highlands.

There is again a tinkling of small bells Among hillsides, and the sky is deep.

Ponies crop the grass at dusk, precisely

Lipping grasses seen greener in the sun, Before sleep and tomorrow's dainty steps.

That fragment that I have to give.

Life is of ponies, if defined, and deep

If somehow you could answer.

Sky away from water. What if the bird Has many ways of looking at ponies?

Some quiet confessional perhaps-?"

"God, if he only knows What this compound of paint And genius tells me and the world!

Pfaugh, writing of Life when there are ponies Riding themselves to pasture! The green spears And pristine bells are exquisite and new.

Annual Writing Award The editors of THE TRI-QUARTERLY are pleased to announce the winners of their first annual writing won the first prize of $50.00 for her story in the Fall issue, "The Beggar." The

award. Kristin Knabe

winner of the second prize, of $25.00, is C. Dennis the Rainbow."

Wunsch, with his story

in this

issue, "The End of

The co-sponsors of this award are Sigma Delta Chi and Theta Sigma Phi, professional journalism iraternuu and sorority respectively. We wish to thank these two organizations for their generosity in promoting creative writing at Northwestern.

Judging is done by the student editors of THE TRI-QUARTERLY from among the undergraduate pieces that have appeared in the three issues each academic yoear. Graduating seniors may receive the award the following year if the story or poem was written bejore time of graduation, as was the case with Kristin Knabe. We hope that this award encourages more undergraduates to contribute to THE TRI-QUARTERLY next year. The prize may be awarded for fiction, poetry, or non-fiction.

Spring,

1960

NORTHWESTERN

UNIVERSITY

Tri-QUARTERLY

1840

Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois

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Deering Library Northwestern University

Evanston,

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